Moon River

drifting through thoughts, one story at a time

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Mostly lost, occasionally found. Writing about the in-between
  • Kamakura: The Spaces Between

    Kamakura: The Spaces Between

    If Tokyo is a city of motion, then Kamakura is a city of pause. The moment I stepped off the train, everything felt different, slower, softer, as if time itself had stretched to accommodate the weight of history. And as I wandered through its streets, I thought about how urban design isn’t just about movement, it’s about stillness, too.

    Kamakura isn’t designed for speed. The roads are narrower, winding gently toward temples tucked into the hills. Unlike Tokyo’s neon density, the skyline here is shaped by tiled roofs, wooden facades, and the quiet presence of nature. It’s a reminder that cities don’t have to compete with time; sometimes, they can exist in harmony with it.

    I made my way to Kōtoku-in, where the Great Buddha sat in stillness, unchanged by the centuries that had rushed past him. Around me, tourists came and went, snapping photos, but the statue remained unmoved. Urban spaces are often designed to accommodate change, skyscrapers rise, roads widen, transit expands. But some spaces, like this one, are designed to endure. And maybe, in life, we need both: places of movement and places of stillness, spaces that propel us forward and spaces that remind us where we’ve been.

    Later, I wandered to Komachi Street, where modern life slipped back in, shops, cafés, the smell of fresh-baked taiyaki drifting through the air. Even in a city so steeped in the past, adaptation found its way in. Kamakura has mastered the balance of preservation and evolution, and I wondered, shouldn’t life be the same? We hold on to the things that shape us, but we allow space for new stories, new paths.

    As the sun set over the Pacific, I found myself at Yuigahama Beach, watching the waves erase footprints in the sand. In Tokyo, movement was linear, a network of destinations and connections. But here, movement was cyclical, waves retreating, then returning, never quite the same, yet always familiar.

    Maybe that’s what Kamakura teaches us, not all journeys have to be about getting somewhere. Some are just about being where you are, letting the city, the moment, and the quiet spaces in between shape you.

  • A Certain Kind of Hao 

    A Certain Kind of Hao 

    In ancient Greece, there’s a story about strangers who meet by accident, not as lovers, not as fated soulmates, but as two travelers whose paths cross for only a moment.

    They share a handful of words, exchange a fragile understanding, then continue on their separate roads.

    Yet somehow, the memory of that encounter lingers longer than the journey itself.

    Philosophers said these meetings were “kairoi. A brief window of time where two lives align just enough to leave a mark, but not enough to stay.

    Perhaps that’s what Hao was to me, a kairois moment in human form.

    He didn’t arrive dramatically.

    There was no thunder, no grand gesture, no cinematic entrance.

    He simply appeared in my world one day, quietly, almost casually, like a passing traveler who unknowingly carried something important.

    He was real.

    And somehow… that was enough.

    There was a softness in him that he tried to hide, a gentle side he didn’t know how to show without feeling exposed.

    I saw it in his hesitations, in the late-night conversations, in the way he cared quietly instead of loudly.

    He was imperfect, but he was trying.

    I appreciated that more than he ever understood.

    Our story wasn’t long or dramatic.

    It was made of small things, shared music, sleepy thoughts exchanged at odd hours, inside jokes, moments of honesty he didn’t know how to deliver without stumbling.

    And sometimes, the small stories shape you more than the grand ones.

    But beneath those moments, there were shadows too.

    Hao carried fears he didn’t know how to name:

    fear of being misunderstood,

    fear of disappointing someone,

    fear of not being enough,

    fear of being seen too clearly,

    fear of wanting more than he believed he deserved.

    He was always torn between opening up and protecting himself.

    And I never saw those fears as flaws, just human pieces of him. Pieces that made him real, vulnerable, a little lost, but always quietly trying.

    People come into our lives at different stages of their becoming.

    Hao met me at a time when he was still learning who he was.

    He didn’t fully trust himself yet.

    He didn’t see the potential he carried, the quiet strength, the thoughtful mind, the softness he guarded like something fragile.

    I wish he had seen himself the way I once did, through my eyes.

    Because beneath the doubts, I found someone who was good.

    Maybe not ready, maybe not steady, maybe not brave yet, but good.

    And that is the version of him I’ll hold onto.

    Not the one shaped by distance, silence, or fear, but the one who tried in his own quiet way.

    I don’t wish our story had gone differently.

    I don’t wish he had stayed longer or become someone he wasn’t ready to be.

    I’m grateful for what it was, exactly as it unfolded.

    He reminded me that even short stories carry meaning.

    That even unfinished connections can be gentle lessons.

    That even complicated people can leave warm memories.

    Despite everything, I never saw him as a bad person. Just someone who needed more time to grow, to trust himself, to understand his heart, to become the man he once whispered he wanted to be.

    I hope he finds peace where he once held fear. I hope he learns to love without worrying he might disappoint someone.

    I hope he stands one day in a life he’s proud of. I hope he sees the worth he often doubted.

    More than anything, I hope he wins in the small but important ways:

    feeling safe, sleeping well, being understood, loving without fear.

    And if someday our paths cross again, even as strangers, I hope he’s standing in the place he once dreamed of reaching.

    Because even if our story ended sooner than I expected, it still mattered.

    He was a moment that shaped me gently, a kairos moment.

    A reminder of how deeply we can care for someone who was never ours to keep.

    A certain kind of Hao.

    A good one.

    Someone I will always wish well, quietly, from a distance.

  • To Pursuit of Happiness

    To Pursuit of Happiness

    How do you define happiness?

    For centuries, philosophers tried to answer that question. 

    Aristotle believed happiness (eudaimonia) wasn’t a feeling at all, but a lifelong practice of becoming the best version of ourselves.

    Epictetus taught that happiness begins the moment we stop trying to control things outside of us. 

    Marcus Aurelius said it’s found in the calm acceptance of what life places in our hands.

    While Plato believed happiness comes from harmony; when the mind, the heart, and the soul finally agree on something.

    And honestly?

    Sometimes I read those ancient ideas and think,

    they must’ve lived quieter lives.

    Because happiness today feels so much messier, less like a philosophical ideal

    and more like a question you whisper to yourself at 3 a.m. when the world finally stops talking.

    So lately I’ve been asking myself:

    What does happiness mean to me?

    Not the version people post on social media.

    Not the one wrapped in quotes or stitched into tote bags.

    But my version.

    The version built from everything I’ve survived, loved, outgrown, and every city that’s left its fingerprints on me.

    I used to think happiness was something I had to chase,

    something outside myself,

    in other people,

    in their validation,

    in promises I hoped they’d keep.

    But the older I get, the more I realize

    happiness is quieter than I thought.

    Less fireworks, more breathing room.

    Less “finally having it all,”

    more “learning to live with myself in every season.”

    These days, happiness looks like small things:

    The way morning light falls into my Hong Kong apartment. Finding the courage to step on a treadmill again, after convincing myself my body wasn’t ready. Slow walks, steady heartbeats, no pressure to be anything other than… here.

    Happiness feels like the moment I stop running, not from life, but from myself.

    The moment I stop trying to be extraordinary and let myself enjoy the simple fact that I’m still standing. Still learning. Still soft, even after everything.

    From my past, I’ve learned that people come and go, but each one leaves something behind, a lesson, a bruise, a memory, a reminder. Some showed me how deeply I can love. Some showed me what I should never settle for again. And some showed me who I don’t want to become.

    From my present, I’m learning that happiness doesn’t always feel loud. It’s often gentle, it appears in the little ways I choose myself. In the way I listen to my body. In the way I forgive myself for taking longer than I thought I would. In the way I keep moving, even slowly.

    And when I look at the future, I don’t see a straight path anymore. I see possibilities,  cities I haven’t walked, people I haven’t met, versions of myself I haven’t discovered yet.

    Maybe happiness isn’t something we arrive at. Maybe it’s something we build, moment by moment.

    Choice by choice.

    Step by step.

    A quiet decision to stay open,

    even when life gets heavy.

    So here’s to the pursuit of happiness, 

    not the frantic chase,

    but the soft kind.

    The kind where you meet yourself again,

    and again,

    and again…

    And each time,

    you stay a little longer.

    Because happiness, I’m starting to realize,

    isn’t something we find.

    It’s someone we grow into.

  • When the Light Fades

    When the Light Fades

    Lately, I’ve been thinking about death.

    Not in the way that spikes fear into your chest or keeps you awake at night.

    It’s softer than that.

    More like a quiet hum in the background of my days.

    A steady, unignorable awareness that all of this; this body, this laughter, these nights spent tracing the stars is temporary.

    Not something to dread.

    Just something to acknowledge.

    I wonder sometimes:

    When I am forever gone,

    what will be left of me?

    Will there be traces? Echoes?

    A familiar scent that drifts through a closed window?

    A phrase I used to say that someone will catch themselves repeating without realizing why?

    I don’t fear dying.

    I fear disappearing.

    Because when the heartbeat stills and the skin cools, what remains?

    Photos? Words?

    Maybe some laughter folded into someone else’s memory?

    Maybe a song on a random Tuesday afternoon that reminds someone, somewhere, that I once existed.

    I think about this not because I’m morbid,

    but because I love being alive too much to pretend it’s permanent.

    I’ve lived.

    God, I have lived.

    I’ve danced in empty kitchens with the lights off.

    I’ve kissed under skies so wide they swallowed my name.

    I’ve stayed up until the sun bruised the edges of the sky, talking about dreams we were too afraid to chase.

    I’ve held grief and love in the same breath and learned they are sometimes indistinguishable.

    I’ve laughed until I forgot the weight in my chest.

    I’ve loved people who never said it back and still found it beautiful.

    I’ve built homes in people’s hearts, even when I knew I could not stay.

    There were days I wanted to quit.

    Mornings where the gravity was heavier than usual.

    Nights where my hands trembled over old wounds I thought had already scarred.

    But still, I stayed.

    Still, I opened my eyes.

    Still, I whispered thank you to the ceiling or the sky or whatever God was listening.

    I lived the tiny moments.

    The vanilla ice cream melting too fast on my tongue.

    The way my friend’s voice cracked when she laughed too hard.

    The comfort of a hand finding mine under the table.

    The softness of knowing that even if I was temporary, the love I gave was not.

    Maybe when I’m gone, there won’t be monuments.

    No parades.

    No grand legacies carved into marble.

    Maybe all that will be left is the way I made someone feel,

    the way I said their name with gentleness,

    the way I sat with someone in their darkness without trying to fix it.

    Maybe someone will remember that once,

    there was a girl who loved the world so stubbornly it cracked her open,

    and she didn’t close back up.

    Maybe that’s enough.

    Maybe that’s the kind of immortality that matters.

    So today, as I sit with these thoughts,

    I am not mourning.

    I am thanking.

    Thanking every moment that built me,

    every heartache that softened me,

    every stranger who smiled back.

    Thanking this life, flawed and fleeting as it is,

    for letting me live it.

    I don’t know how long I have.

    None of us do.

    But if my time comes sooner than I expect,

    I hope whoever remembers me doesn’t just remember that I was here.

    I hope they remember that I was alive.

    Fully. Fiercely. Softly.

    Bravely.

    And that I was grateful

    for all of it.

  • A Blessing Called Hao

    A Blessing Called Hao

    There are people who walk into your life not to stay, but to awaken something within you, and Hao was one of them.

    He came quietly, like the start of a song I didn’t know I’d come to love so deeply. The kind of soul who doesn’t realize how gentle he is, how deeply he feels, or how worthy he is of being loved, simply for existing as he is.

    But love, when it’s real, doesn’t always come easy. Sometimes it arrives wrapped in contradictions, tenderness and fear, closeness and distance, longing and restraint. With Hao, I learned that even the most beautiful connections can exist in a space where love is felt, but not fulfilled.

    We loved differently. We believed differently. And in a world that demanded choices between love and faith, between freedom and fear, we found ourselves standing on opposite sides of the same ocean, reaching out, but unable to bridge the tide.

    So I left, not because I stopped loving him, but because I knew I had to for us find our own peace.

    Because love, when it begins to cost you your peace, asks for a kind of bravery that doesn’t always end in staying. Sometimes, loving someone means letting them go, trusting that distance can be an act of grace too.

    And yet, I still love him, quietly, steadily, without expectation. I love him for the way his mind works, for the kindness he doesn’t see in himself, for the way he hides his softness behind laughter and irony.

    I love him for the parts he’s too afraid to show, the unspoken fears, the fragile hopes, the boy who believes he’s too complicated to be loved when, in truth, he’s made of everything beautiful.

    Hao has every right to be loved. Every right to be seen in his wholeness, not just in his strength, but in his doubts and shadows too. And though I may no longer be the one beside him, I hope he finds that kind of love one day, the kind that doesn’t scare him. I hope he heals from everything that scares him.

    I used to think love had to last to mean something. Now I know, sometimes, the purest love is the one that sets you free.

    In another universe, maybe we would have made it. But in this one, I’ll honor him by remembering, that once in my life, I met someone who showed me what it means to love without possession, to care without control, to let go with grace.

    Hao was never a mistake.

    He was a blessing, one I’ll carry with me, always 🤍

    Xoxo

  • Dream is My Reality

    Dream is My Reality

    Last night, I dreamt of you.

    We were on a road trip somewhere, no destination, no plan, just the rhythm of tires meeting the earth, and the sound of a song neither of us bothered to name. The air was warm, the windows rolled down, and for the first time in a long while, you looked free. 

    I woke up with the taste of sunlight and nostalgia, the kind that lingers like the last note of a song you can’t stop replaying.

    Scientifically speaking, dreams like this are called recurrent emotional imagery. When the mind misses something it can’t have, it recreates it, not to torture us, but to preserve what we fear losing.

    Neuroscientists say it’s our limbic system, the emotional core of the brain, trying to reconcile love and absence. My brain, apparently, still thinks loving you is part of its survival instinct.

    Because that’s what it felt like: surviving.

    Even after all this time, you appear behind closed eyelids as if my subconscious refuses to believe you’re gone. I guess when the heart doesn’t get closure, the mind tries to create one, through dreams, through flashes, through scents.

    And speaking of scents, I can’t smell vanilla without thinking of you. That warm, comforting trace of sweetness you once told me about. Now it follows me through bookstores and cafés, through strangers passing by. It’s cruel, how something as innocent as perfume can reopen a memory so gently. 

    I’ve been missing you in strange ways lately.

    Not in the dramatic kind of way but in moments. In the way I pause before turning off a song we used to share.

    In the way I still remember your stories, the ones about your childhood, your dreams, and everything else. 

    Maybe that’s what the dream was about. Its my mind reminding me of what it feels like when love isn’t heavy, when it’s just you and me on an endless road, unafraid, unbound.

    And maybe… that’s enough for now.

    Because even if the road trip never happened, even if you and I are now two parallel lines, I’m grateful my heart still remembers the sound of your laughter, and that somewhere deep in my sleeping mind,

    we’re still driving.

  • Do You Still Remember?

    Do You Still Remember?

    There’s a strange kind of quiet that comes after someone you love drifts away, not the kind you hear, but the kind you feel.

    The silence between us has stretched so far now that I sometimes forget where it began.

    Yet even here, in the stillness, I still find myself longing for your existence.

    I tell myself I’m fine.

    I keep myself busy with my things but everytime i pause, i still think of you. I miss you a little too much, a little too often, a little more everyday. 

    I fill my days with work, plans, people who make me laugh just enough.

    But longing doesn’t care about schedules.

    It sneaks in when I least expect it, in the middle of brushing my hair, or when I pass by a song that reminds me of you. 

    And it’s always the little things that find me.

    The way you said my name when you were tired.

    The pauses you took before saying goodnight.

    The way your words sometimes stumbled when you felt too much.

    You’re still there, between the seconds of my day, like dust floating in sunlight, visible only when I stop pretending not to look.

    It’s been quiet, hasn’t it?

    I’ve learned to live around your absence the way people learn to live with old wounds, carefully, gently, pretending it doesn’t ache when it rains.

    But sometimes, late at night, when the city has gone to sleep and all I can hear is my own breathing, I still think about you.

    About us.

    And even after all this silence, I still wonder, do you ever find me in the small corners of your life the way I still find you in mine?

    When your favorite song plays, when the world goes quiet, when the moon hangs low and lonely, do you still remember?

    Because I do. I still write about my days, about you, everyday on my journal. 

    In quiet ways I can’t explain.

    I remember, everything. 

    And maybe, deep down, I still hope you do too.

  • Dear Hao

    Dear Hao

    I’ve been turning our story over in my head, and somehow I always circle back to Simon and Betty. Their love was messy, complicated, and imperfect, but it was also undeniable, a force so strong that it survived time, curses, and universes. Simon carried Betty in his every breath, and Betty, no matter how much she tried to move forward, always found herself choosing Simon, even when it cost her everything.

    And maybe that’s why I think of you when I think of them. Because like Simon, you’re afraid of being consumed by love, afraid of how deep it runs, afraid of what happens when reality pulls us apart. And like Betty, I feel that ache of loving you with everything I am, even when I don’t know where this path will lead.

    But here’s the truth: I don’t love you because I expect forever. I love you because in this fleeting universe, in this brief crossing of our lives, you’ve touched a part of me I didn’t know was waiting. You’ve been my boy, my freak, my Hao. And even if distance, time, or circumstance keeps us apart, you’re already written into my story in a way I can’t erase.

    Simon and Betty didn’t get their happy ending. But maybe their love was never about endings. Maybe it was about knowing that some people are once-in-a-lifetime, and whether you hold them for a moment or forever, they change you. That’s what you are to me.

    So if you’re afraid of the hurt, I understand. But know this: my love isn’t something you have to carry like a burden. It’s something that will stay with me, quiet, eternal, like an echo across every universe. And in every version of myself, I think I’d still find you, and I’d still fall for you.

    Always yours,

    Luna

  • To Break Free?

    To Break Free?

    What does it mean to be at peace with your past?

    Is it silence? Is it forgetting? Is it forgiveness? Or is it something else? something quieter, harder, more profound?

    I think of this one boy when I ask this. He’s only 19 yet the stories he carried is heavier than most adults.

    The boy I first stumbled across online, his laughter spilling through a microphone as he streamed games, careless and magnetic all at once. He joked about alot of things, wore mischief like a second skin, and at first, I thought I understood him: another teenager, reckless, wild, untouchable. But I was wrong.

    Because behind the laughter was a story heavier than most adults carry. A father whose anger was louder than any lullaby. A childhood filled with storms, not shelter. A boy who learned early that safety wasn’t guaranteed.

    Most people would crumble under that kind of weight. They would let it define them, let it calcify into resentment or shadow every relationship that followed. But not him. He chose differently.

    He did not deny his past. He did not erase it. He simply refused to be caged by it. 

    Instead, he made peace with it. To break free from it.

    And peace, I realized, doesn’t always mean softness. Sometimes it’s defiance. Sometimes it’s smiling when the world expected you to grow bitter. Sometimes it’s laughing so loudly that the past can no longer drown you out. His joy wasn’t naïve, it was deliberate. His lightness wasn’t shallow, it was survival.

    That’s the thing about scars: they never disappear, but they change shape. For him, they became reminders, not shackles. Proof that he lived through the fire and still chose to dance in the ashes.

    And I couldn’t help but wonder, how many of us are still chained to our own histories? We carry heartbreaks, betrayals, mistakes we replay on loop, as if holding them tighter will finally rewrite the ending. We think freedom means forgetting. But maybe real freedom is remembering, and not flinching.

    He showed me that peace isn’t about pretending the storm never happened. It’s about learning to live without checking the weather forecast.

    When I think of him now, I don’t just admire his resilience, I admire his choice. The choice to laugh, to play, to radiate joy when his past could have easily made him bitter. The choice to stop being burdened by what he never asked for.

    And maybe that’s what it means to truly break free. Not to erase, not to escape, but to carry your story differently. To walk with your scars as companions instead of enemies. To live in such a way that your past is still part of you, but it no longer rules you.

    What does it mean to be at peace with your past? Maybe it means this: to smile, to laugh, to keep going, not because your story was easy, but because it wasn’t.

    And just like that, I realized… freedom isn’t the absence of pain. It’s the presence of peace.

  • Seasons

    Seasons

    Some songs don’t just play in the background.

    They hold you.

    Like a friend who doesn’t ask questions, just sits beside you in silence, knowing that’s enough.

    That’s what “Seasons” by Wave to Earth did to me.

    It didn’t come crashing in with declarations. It didn’t try to fix anything. It just poured itself out like sunlight through a grey window; quiet, slow, and aching in the most delicate way.

    From the first note, I felt like I was walking through myself.

    The lyrics don’t explain everything, and that’s the beauty of it. It’s not trying to give you answers. It’s simply telling you, “Yes. I’ve been there too.”

    To that moment when love lingers but doesn’t stay.

    When the warmth you once held in your hands starts slipping through your fingers; softly, and then all at once.

    When the days change, and you change with them, whether you wanted to or not.

    “Seasons” is about that quiet in-between.

    The space where love used to live.

    Where memories become foggy at the edges, and names still live in your chest even though your lips don’t say them anymore.

    It reminded me of a version of myself I no longer am.

    Of people who felt like spring but left in winter.

    Of how time moves forward, even when your heart doesn’t.

    But Wave to Earth doesn’t write from bitterness. That’s what makes the song so hauntingly beautiful.

    There’s no anger. No resistance. Just acceptance.

    A gentle exhale: “This, too, was love. This, too, had its season.”

    And maybe that’s the lesson I needed.

    Not all endings have to be loud.

    Some just fade like early morning light.

    Some people aren’t meant to stay, not because they didn’t matter, but because the season changed, and so did we.

    So I’ll carry this song with me, on slow walks, on rainy evenings, in quiet airports.

    As a reminder that letting go doesn’t mean forgetting.

    And endings don’t mean it wasn’t real.

    It was, Real!

    And like all seasons,

    it passed.

  • Book Review: The Alchemist

    Sometimes a book doesn’t change your life.

    It simply reminds you of the life you were always meant to live.

    When I picked up The Alchemist, I wasn’t really expecting anything. It was a quiet evening, the kind where the world feels like it’s holding its breath. I read the first few pages, and something in me slowed down. There’s a calm in Coelho’s writing, a clarity. As if every sentence knows where it’s going, even if you don’t. And maybe that’s what struck me the most: the comfort of being lost, yet still trusting the path.

    Santiago, the shepherd boy, sets out in search of treasure. But of course, it’s never just about treasure. It’s about leaving behind what’s familiar. It’s about learning to listen; to the wind, the desert, the soul. To silence. And that’s what resonated with me most.

    My own journey has been filled with maps that don’t match the terrain. Plans that made sense in theory but unraveled the moment I stepped into the unknown. I’ve changed countries, changed paths, changed versions of myself more times than I can count. And yet, for all the uncertainty, there’s been a strange kind of guidance underneath it all. Like Santiago, I’ve come to believe that the universe really does whisper; softly, subtly, and only when you’re ready to listen.

    One of the lines that stayed with me was this: “You will never be able to escape from your heart. So it’s better to listen to what it has to say.” That line lingered. Because there have been seasons where I tried to quiet my instincts, to play it safe, to stay in one place, to follow paths already carved by others. But the heart is persistent. It keeps nudging. It knows what it wants long before the mind is willing to catch up. So, whatever it is, trust your heart!

    I’ve always been drawn to signs. To moments that feel too aligned to be coincidence. Coelho calls these “omens,” and I love that word. It feels ancient. Sacred. And in a way, reading The Alchemist reminded me of how I’ve always tried to make sense of my life through patterns, meaning, and wonder. Not everything has to be logical. Sometimes, a dream is enough.

    There’s also this quiet encouragement throughout the book to keep going, even when nothing makes sense. Even when the desert feels endless and everything inside you wants to turn back. And honestly, that’s where I am now. Not at the beginning, but not yet at the treasure. Somewhere in the middle. Somewhere in the stillness between departure and arrival.

    And it’s okay.

    This book didn’t give me answers. But it gave me language for the questions I’ve been carrying:

    What does it mean to live fully?

    To trust without proof?

    To risk being misunderstood in order to be real?

    I still don’t know.

    But I think I’m closer than I was before.

    Santiago’s story reminded me that the journey is the treasure. That who we become along the way is more valuable than anything we might find at the end. That paying attention to our dreams, to our restlessness, to the rhythm of the world is the bravest thing we can do.

    So I’ll keep walking.

    I’ll keep listening.

    And I’ll keep trusting that the path, however winding, it’s still mine.