We have been here in Hokkaido for a week now, and I've been wanting to write to you since we landed.

This is the beginning of a long, full summer of travel for our family — Japan first, then the mainland for Aspen's yo-yo competition, then Pittsburgh to be with family, and then Germany — and I thought, what a beautiful opportunity to stay connected with you along the way and share what I'm learning and experiencing as we go. My hope is that something in these letters lands for you, maybe opens something up, even if your life looks nothing like mine right now.

Getting Here

We decided to save some money and book a short hop from Maui to Oahu and then a separate international flight from there to Sapporo, and I will just say that the savings were not worth it. We were running through the Tokyo airport with our bags, getting turned around more than once, the airline lost our luggage, and at one point there were sweet airport staff literally jogging alongside us toward our gate — and through all of it, Olaf just got us there, calm and steady in the way that he is. We made it. And somewhere in the middle of that chaos I said to him, sometimes the thing you do to make life easier just makes it harder, and you only know that on the other side of it.

What My Body Taught Me

Before we left Maui, I'll be honest — I was a little worried about what stopping would do to my body. The weeks leading up to this trip were intense, and I knew it. Packing up the house, getting things into storage, coordinating travel across multiple countries, keeping everything running at the same time — it was a lot, and I felt it. I kept waiting for the crash, that moment where your body finally sends the bill for everything you spent.

Olaf noticed before I really let myself say it out loud. He said to me, you really can do so much more than you used to, and I felt that land in a quiet, meaningful way. I had taken good care of myself through all of it — healing sessions, listening when my body said enough, not pushing past what was actually true — and something about that held. My body showed up for me, and for someone who has spent a long time in a complicated relationship with her body, that is not a small thing to receive.

The first few days here, though, something else moved through me that I want to share with you, because I think it's real and it's something we don't talk about much. I felt this low-grade restlessness, a kind of agitation I couldn't quite name at first. I wanted to open my computer and start planning the next leg of the trip, I found myself wanting to eat not because I was hungry but just to give myself something, a little hit of feeling, and I kept noticing this pull to be doing, producing, moving — and I recognized it. This is just the energy I normally pour into work, and it had arrived in Japan with me and had nowhere to go.

That space between moving fast and actually resting is not comfortable when you first get there. It doesn't feel like peace right away — it feels more like boredom or a low hum of anxiety, like your nervous system is waiting for the next thing and getting confused when it doesn't come. I've been in that place enough times now to know what it is, and that knowing helped. I didn't fill it. I stayed with it, let it move through, and after a day or so it genuinely shifted into something softer and more open.

And what came on the other side of that was real rest, a softness and spaciousness I hadn't felt in a long time, and I was reminded that this kind of rest isn't something you can plan for or push yourself into — it asks you to wait for it, and to trust that it's coming

What Japan Is Showing Me About Food

Nobody here eats while they walk. Nobody carries a coffee cup down the street or snacks on the train, and there are signs in certain places that say no eating in spots where that would never even occur to us to wonder about back home. When I got off the train in Sapporo, I found the most adorable little stand selling matcha egg pudding, and it looked so good that I bought one and started eating it immediately, right there standing up — and then I caught myself and thought, that is such an American thing to do. In Japan, you sit. The eating is its own moment, not something layered on top of the next thing you're rushing toward. I'm not making anyone wrong for how they relate to food, including myself — I'm just noticing, and noticing has been its own quiet teacher this week.

The Good Stuff

Aspen and I went on an epic ebike ride together — the first time either of us had been on one — through scenery that honestly looked made up, it was so stunning, and we found a little café along the way and had lavender soft serve, which is apparently a specialty here in Hokkaido and was every bit as good as it sounds.

We went as a family to karaoke one evening in a nearby city, which felt meaningful because one of Olaf's and my very first dates was at a karaoke studio in LA, and this one was big and beautiful and cost us literally ten dollars for the three of us to sing for an hour. We hiked up a volcanic mountain together, all rocky and dramatic, and then soaked in an outdoor onsen afterward where the water was so powerfully hot that we barely lasted — Aspen got a little lightheaded and we called it. And right above our house is this park with wide open space and mountain views and long staircases everywhere, and Olaf and I have been doing our sprints and skipping rope up there in the mornings with the snow-capped mountains right in front of us, which still feels a little unreal.

This is what opens up on the other side of slowing down. I'm so glad we're here, and I'm glad you're coming along with me.

More soon.

With love,

Marla