What Happened to 2022…?

This was in my drafts for SIX MONTHS. Oh well, better late than never? Enjoy!!

Is this the state of things? Am I just going to post once a year, looking back at the year that was? Here’s hoping not. We’ll try better in 2023. It’s the Year of the Rabbit, after all, and that promises a great many things for me.

Akiko’s Buddhist Retreat

The year started off great. I was on retreat on Moku o Keawe. Focused on strengthening my mental and emotional state for the adventures to come.

February had me traveling once again for work “after” the pandemic.

Off to Rice University!

Houston has changed so much over the years!

March brought Cherry Blossoms and more reunions.

Ingraham St, NW, DC

By April, the world was really opening up again, with personal travel ramping up again, and mask mandate’s going away. For Mom’s 80th, we took her on a Bucket List adventure to Butchart Gardens on Victoria Island, BC in n Canada

May brought me back out West for work. Los Angeles for the first time since the pandemic!!! And Star Wars Celebration.

The warm weather meant the people started taking to the streets again in DC. Happy to support the Poor People’s March. Rev. Barber is a prophet of our times.

Then, just when you thought we’d settle down, focus on the house and life and wellness (like the top of the year), we go loco and take 10 flights in 14 days.

Machu Pichu

Iguazu Falls

Buenos Aires

August included a trip up to New York to visit posh new digs in the World Trade Center.

Now for the house content that is actually relevant to this blog. The basement. September. Brutal.

Chaos

The basement flooded after the backyard drain clogged. So then I had to get the carpet off the floor, and the drain sorted before the next torrential down pour. Thankfully, it was a simple clog that the plumber’s snake could handle. He told me that I was lucky because the other homes on this block were having issues with septic overflow coming up and out of toilets. Gross.

October brought another trip to Houston (anything for HBCUs). This is the biggest baked potato I’ve ever seen.

With a lovely day at Glenstone. My happy place.

And if you thought, it’s November – surely she isn’t going on anymore trips. FALSE. Ireland and the Ring of Kerry!

Nothing like an amazing adventure to keep you focused on the present. And nothing like getting knocked off your bike by the wind three times. 10/10 would do again. But in the summer.

And BACK out West for the Holidays

I feel the world tried to make up for lost time in 2022. Like, everyone went a little overboard to compensate for the two years we lost in quarantine. I feel we ran head first back to “normal,” when in fact, we are living in a post-apocalyptic American capitalist dystopian nightmare. So I’m hoping 2023 will be a course correction on all fronts. Back towards wellness. Intention. In the eternal words of Maxine Nightengale, “Get right back to where we started from.”