Why I always take the scenic route
FROM THE NEWSLETTER, Feb. 1st.
An announcement: The Daily Rest Studio is Live.
In 2019, I made a fatal error. I was in Tokyo and it was summer and I decided to walk, from my hotel in Jingumae, to the ass end of Shibuya, to visit the exhibition of Johanna Tagada, an incredible artist I’d been following and exchanging words of appreciation with online, for almost a decade.
It’s important to note: I am someone who actually loves humidity. A favourite feeling, and one I miss dearly in pandemic times, is exiting the Ngurah Rai Airport in Bali, and allowing the fragrant, thick air to hold me, after hours of being in the dry, air conditioned hellscape of planes and airports. Every time, without fail, it softens my body, and brings me a smile of relief, while my friends look on in blatant disgust. But Tokyo in Summer is a different beast. The humidity is molasses thick and dead still, each step as if the body is weighted down. But the worst part isn’t even the heat itself. It’s the inconceivable fact, that unless you’re in the presence of other tourists or expats, you’re always the only one who is actually sweating.
I say walking was a fatal error, but that’s really only for those who have too much pride. Yes, I arrived at the quaint, trendy bookshop, with my carefully selected little outfit now soaked, and the colour of my skin matching my hair (an excellent look for a redhead) so instead of rushing in, I sat.
I sat just outside bookshop, tiny as a matchbox, and downed a bottle of mugicha. I listened to the sound of the 5pm bell, somewhat sweeter in summer due to the fact it signals the heat may soon begin to wane. I exchanged a few mangled words of Japanese with an elderly woman. I smiled. It is in moments like this, the pause, when everything really is okay. Even if you do look like a pulsating, caucasian tomato, in a town of exquisitely cool Tokyo locals. I believe it is because I consistently choose to take the scenic route, the long way, oppressive humidity or not, that perhaps I never look the chicest: but I have come to find my favourite places and people in this city, that it has come to feel like home.
~
The exhibition was perfect. We sipped ice tulsi tea and smiled nervously. Johanna is a wonderful, successful artist who has made this her lifestyle for many, many years. Her work, to me, is the embodiment of gentleness. Everything she creates seems to relax my entire system and remind me it’s okay, preferable even, to move at a snails pace. It’s soft and unsuspecting, but whenever I come across her work, it has the power to stop me in my tracks.
After the exhibition I went for dinner at one of my favourite spots in the middle of Shibuya city, D47 Shokudo, I still remember the salad I ate (partly thanks to iphone photos, party thanks to the fact it was the last time I was in there, partly because salad is usually not that memorable, but this is Tokyo, where the everyday takes on an intense level of magic, so high is the attention to detail, even to something as average as a sweet potato). I realised it is gentleness who moves the hands of the person selecting the most perfect leaves for a salad so good people will fly halfway across the world to eat it. It is gentleness that opens a tiny coffee stand in the corner behind a starbucks and knows every customer by name. It is not the neon lights and bullet trains that pull me back to this city: but the two seater tea shops, the winding backstreets, the tiny linen boutiques, the quiet, the hidden, the slow.
~
For many years I believed accepting my gentleness meant I would never again be considered strong, confident, sexy, successful or cool. It is as if the word gentle was fused, mentally, to other words like: lazy, boring and weak.
The nature of this world is loud. The pressure to move quickly is relentless. But what I have witnessed, time and time again, is that when you choose to move slowly, when you choose to walk, no matter the weather, instead of taking the temperature controlled, always on time to the second express train, there’s so much more to discover. In choosing slowness, we choose sustainability, satisfaction and deep connection. We choose richness.
Instead of seeing gentleness as weakness, I now see it as strength.
The Daily Rest Studio is born from years of practicing slowness, allowing gentleness to shine through. It’s a place to take all the online classes, live or at your own pace, but because I like to take the scenic route, I’ve also included a community page, private journal posts, audio meditations, mini classes, book recommendations and more.
I invite you to take a stroll in the studio and see what captures your attention as you pass by. I can’t wait to see how this space grows and evolves as we come together and make this a sacred digital home.