35 finds me with my feet in the water.
Pristine, glass-blue, freezing water. An alpine lake in the middle of the Enchantments, in the middle of Washington. My Big Apple-red toenails dipped in the snowmelt from the glaciers of the enclosing mountains. Swimmers more courageous than I am include my family and some younger ones enjoying their youth, their seishun, shrieking in the cold while ladling out invitations to friends staying ashore.
Getting to sit like this, in a lake like this, isn’t a walk in the park. It takes a toll, and a hefty one at that. Five hours over boulders, dusty paths, sheer rock faces, thorny shrubberies, raging rivers, and fallen logs. A song says that if it was easy, then everybody would do it too1, but still, it doesn’t keep the parking lot from being full. It’s the height of summer, after all. But we have this small patch of shore to ourselves, hidden from most by a grove of trees and bits of driftwood. So I take off my shoes and have my lunch of tapa rice and, for a moment, forget about the hike it took to get here and the inevitable hike back. “Danger past and God forgotten,” as they say. As the first half of my 30s draws its curtain closed and the gaping abyss that is middle-age stretches out before me, I’m taking stock of things on a lakeshore in the mountains. Where better to do it than here, where there’s no before or after, only cloudless dome and crystal blue?
If there’s a word that will best describe this stage in my life, it’s reacquaintance. Who I was is playing catch-up trying to reacquaint with who I’m becoming, because my body has been making a habit of betraying itself. It likes to hike now. Exercise feels good. Meditation makes sense. My tastes have flipped: usual foods have become either too salty or too sweet, the books I used to hate and love now switched places (except Wuthering Heights: I’m very happy to report I still loathe it after a recent reattempt). How I feel about mangoes and Thai food has changed to a positive. The sum of my parts have very little trace of my old selves’, like a person with bionic joints; my younger versions from even a decade ago will have trouble recognizing me. Burglars have snuck in the night and changed all the locks.
Despite the bourgeoning changes already taking place beyond my control, I’m also actively trying to be a better version of now. A more present, slowed-down version; a piano rendition. It’s odd that it takes more awareness to do so. It doesn’t come naturally. I have to tell myself to write this down, shoot with film, look up from that book. Be more empathetic, pay more attention, don’t eat too fast. Apparently these are acquired skills, in that it’s not very easy to just smell the roses. There’s consciousness in the process and it takes willpower. Case in point: I started this journal of essays for this very purpose but honestly I write more in my head than here. It’s a habit I need to break into, or there’s a bad habit I need to get out of; either way, the beauty is in the attempt2. I’m logged in and typing this, aren’t I?
And as if I’m not evolving enough already, I’ve also imposed a real goal for the latter half of this decade. Because why not. I’ve been learning Japanese for 5 years now, and it’s so ingrained in my day-to-day that it’s amusing to think how its beginnings were only driven part by my boredom during COVID and part by a bright idea of trying to see what the lyrics meant in the few Japanese songs I had on Spotify. Now it’s dozens of songs, mangas, and novels later and I still didn’t really think I will want to take the proficiency exam. I detest the structured textbook study and rote-memorization without context and besides, it’s not a requirement unless I’m aiming to work there. For the most part I’ve mirrored my “study” of Japanese to the way I learned English, which was through media consumption.
But as I like the notch on the proverbial belt, a challenge, then: pass the JLPT N1 before I’m 40. I’m giving myself quite a wide berth here, to stew in the pot for a few more years before I take a more organized study of formal grammar structures, technical reading material, and the 2,136 common-use kanji each with their own nuances and ways to read. My listening comprehension needs to get out of the gutter. But it’d be nice, passing it. A small reward for myself, to feel that age-old sense of accomplishment whenever we’re presented with an officious-looking certificate as a symbol of one’s endeavor and hard work. 頑張ります。
Leaving the lake behind, we make our homeward trudge. The dust on the trail spins thickly in the golden afternoon sun, the boulders seem steeper at descent, and I’m dying for some ice in my hydration bladder. Another five hours later and we sit at the trailhead in a half-comatose state, waiting for the car to pull up and take us back to Leavenworth. I think about a good shower, and the beer garden we’ll go to for dinner. My boots and hands are caked with dust. I stink. I have a bug bite. My legs are dead and don’t want to move another inch. My concerns are simple and mundane, and I’m grateful. For 35, a well enough start.
TINY WORRIES 