TODAY I WOKE and put on a jacket and a beanie and a scarf, and I walked. I got a coffee and some honey, thinking, it doesn’t matter how you feel.

We’re not disposed to feel joy endlessly; the mercurial sky reflects our mood, cold with wind and changing — but we’re stronger than the winter winds.

Crestfallen by nature we must decide, I won’t let today pass me by. I might hurt, mind saturated with the past or bright with future light, but I’m alive.

I got music in my ears, legs that move, and I always got my smile to share.

So let’s go; shape up, kid. Seize the day.

Returning to my room, gusting through my soul’s an appreciative calm.

A room: Right now it’s all I really want or need. The city’s past my windows, the argent sky and gales rattle my shutters.

There’s a world within to explore; mountains of thought and a river of joy, books on the shelf with spines weathered from their passage amongst friends, traveling the world all on their own.

The room teems with words writ and ideas turned over as often as the sheets. Each piece hanging on the walls or sitting on the desk bears a spirit of its own.

The clothes and salt and honey on the shelf; the mug and matcha whisk and incense burning slow; the stocking wrapped in Christmas lights; the bamboo, home to a Hong Kong skull beside mementoes of friendship, asking me to ponder death.

I don’t need much, cause what I have I love, and if I don’t, I let go.

I look around at what I love and the dim sheen of light, cast upon the blankets; I look to the shadows in the corners, perhaps home to eyes I can’t see that see me.

I’m happy here; it won’t be forever. This room has grown with me, inspirited from nights out in Osaka, returning at the crack of dawn.

Aged by silent and sweet early mornings, dusting off a night of rest to rise with the sun and dance, or shed tears, or shake my head in awe.

Its nature is my own, this spirit I carry and long to share, what hurts and bleeds and breathes to inspire.

Cause what I give is what I need; I’m not telling you but telling me — shape up kid. You have so much. And if I need these words of gratitude every goddam day, somebody else may need them too.

What do you do on the daily which brings you joy?

For me, it’s penning these words; it’s a walk in the fresh morning air.

I’m so thankful for that, for I require nothing more than what I have. I live in this room. But the room — the world I’ve come to love — lives in me; it could be anywhere, for the room I’m in becomes the words, an expression of perception of the details — I look around at the pictures on the walls and the pieces of your heart, what your tokens, your past, your future means to you.

I witness that and it makes me happy, realizing that what I feel is what you feel; for you have a room unlike mine that bears your loss and love and wit; memories.

Rooms carry time; time changes us. This room changes through the seasons; it’s scary how quickly the seasons change.

Is time a killer or a salve. Do we walk away from who we were, the kid curious touching walls or skipping over airport luggage carousel lines, the foreshadow of a creative, unbound by convention if the kid of the heart remains; or, do we walk towards greater understanding?

Wisdom?

We can’t control it, yet we can either fear or appreciate time, seeing it for what it is: things growing then dying, sky shifting, grey to blue rain to sun; the day gives rise to night and moon; I don’t want to live in fear, for the walk to one day close our eyes is healing.

It doesn’t matter how you feel.

Time heals and it must pass and we can’t hold on to it, can’t capture its potency as much as we try with pictures and words, history in pastel paint and wars in loose film; but we can see it, for we feel the wind blow and that should tell us all we need to know, that today’s beautiful, a snap of the fingers, a morning in your room, an afternoon in the arms of the city.

We may realize that today is all there is, and we may feel shitty or melancholic, and that’s okay.

We mustn’t fake happiness, nor reality.

The reality is that we’re alive, and no matter how we feel, to be alive is fucking beautiful, because we’re all here, irrespective of if it hurts or if it’s painless, if it’s just another weekday or a weekend that we’ve been looking forward to for months.

We’re alive. Time is nothing but a chance to live.