I’m well into my second month here, and it feels like I’ve been living in this place for a long time. The house is filled with incredibly kind and generous people. We orbit each other throughout the day—each of us quietly immersed in our own creative work—and then drift back into the kitchen, where the heart of our connection lives. That’s where we reassemble. That’s where the stories spill.
Roles have begun to take shape. Yesterday, we spotted a giant wolf spider in the house. We all shrieked, but it was Lydon who leapt into action—grabbing the vacuum like a seasoned warrior. I became the support squad, sprinting for tape to seal the vacuum nozzle afterward (because nobody wanted to risk a sequel). The whole episode was chaotic and hilarious and somehow grounding. Ali, who is absolutely terrified of spiders, announced that her role in the house would be “ass kicker” in case of future invasions. We were picking roles inside a crisis for a future crisis when we knew we couldn’t emerge as the spider-slaying hero like Lyndon.
There’s something deeply peaceful about the rhythm of life here. We sleep, work, eat, walk, talk, drift—and repeat. It’s hard to believe we were randomly thrown together. It doesn’t feel random anymore.
A few nights ago, we went to an izakaya, one of those cozy, neighborhood pubs. An older man from the area sat down with us and joined our table. We used our phones to cobble together a conversation, with Ali—who knows the most Japanese—taking the lead. We learned that he lives in one of the houses overlooking the rice fields by the river. A carpenter with no family, just living his life. He bought us a bottle of shōchū (not to be confused with sake), and told us—through gestures and translations—that you’re supposed to mix it with hot water. Lightbulb moment: the bottle of sake I bought last week tasted like motor oil, and now I know why. That night felt like a small, unexpected bridge between lives.
We’ve met the other artists from the nearby houses too—a woman from Estonia, one from Israel, someone from Amsterdam, and a woman from the Midwest.
What’s strange—and beautiful—is how easily this new life has become a life and now this is my normal. I bike through now familiar streets, hear a different language all day, eat food I never thought I’d crave.
There are moments here where I feel like I’ve slipped into a parallel universe. Not the science fiction kind with multiverses and doppelgängers, but the softer, lived kind. A universe that’s just as real, just as textured, just as “me”… but somehow not the same me.
This version of me drinks tea while watching mist roll over rice fields. She takes slow bikerides down gravel roads, speaks in gestures and translated phrases, and doesn’t plan ahead much. She laughs with strangers-turned-friends in the kitchen, and lets the day shape her, rather than the other way around. She’s more present. More porous.
And then—ping—a message from back home, a FaceTime call, a photo from a friend, and I’m suddenly snapped back to that universe. The one with routines and deadlines and west coast rain. Where I drink coffee in the morning, where I know exactly where my socks are and the air smells like cedar and ocean. That life feels just as close. Just as true.
It’s weird how easily we move between lives. How many versions of ourselves we carry at once. Sometimes all it takes is a change in location, language, or time zone—and an entirely new self gets to step forward. Not better or worse. Just different.
What stitches all these selves together is the thread of the people we love—Loc, Zoe, my sisters, my family, and the friends who reach out while I’m here. They are my gravity. The ones who remember the version of me I might forget in a new place. They keep me tethered. Remind me that while the scenery changes, I am still me.
It makes me wonder—don’t we all live like this? Quietly inhabiting parallel lives without even noticing? The “you” at work. The “you” in your hometown. The “you” in a new city, a new friendship, a new rhythm. Each version real. Each one layered on top of the others like pages in a flipbook.
What if none of those versions cancel the others out? What if the most honest way to live is to acknowledge the shape-shifting—to hold space for every version of yourself without choosing just one?
Maybe we’re all just travelers, quietly hopping timelines. And maybe the beauty of living isn’t about settling into one version of life, but learning how to live in-between. To inhabit the borderlands of who you were, who you are, and who you’re becoming.
Right now, I’m in one of those borderlands. And I think I’ll stay here a while.