More than any other year, the conditions and challenges we faced this year have urged us to rethink the life we knew before. We have adjusted our habits and routines, including the way we work, learn, and play. We shifted the way we conceptualize our time, space, and relationships. I appreciated reading Emil's story about wearing a meaningful ring as a form of self-care, as well as A.C.'s story about how their analogue journey shifted over the course of 2020 on the pages of Jiyu Planner. To me, their stories express the form of resilience through the thick and thin of 2020.
As December turns its twisty corner, we are also asked to be the master curator behind the 2020 holiday season. There are many challenging limitations and important considerations to be made to be safer and healthier as a community. It can feel frustrating and dizzying. I absolutely believe in acknowledging that, head first. Yet limitations are essential components of the design process to develop original ideas (you can read Frido's Creative Strategies book, chapter 4 about "Planting Limits" if you are interested in becoming more familiar with this concept :).
Despite the challenges or perhaps because of the challenges, I am determined to embrace this December and create unique and authentic ways to celebrate the moments. There will be sweet cookies to be baked and shared, cards with warm wishes to be mailed out, and our sacred family ritual to admire the holiday tree each evening, along with the quiet, solitary time to ponder on big questions as Trina suggest in her story.
"Ichigo Ichie" is the idea of honoring to spend the given moment as present as possible. Because no matter how hard we try to keep things the same, no given moment will duplicate the one before or after. This December will never be the same as December of previous years. But isn't every December?
I am sending you warm thoughts, gratitude, and positive energy, all wrapped in the BK ribbon.
-wakako
always a work in progress...
Pasadena, California // December 4th, 2020
**This is from our BK Love Letter for December 2020. If you would like to see the entire love letter we sent to our community, you can browse it via this link.
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