Nagomi: finding harmony after a deep Trump funk #69

Did last week knock you sideways? This Saturday I found the key to happiness, and the Japanese philosophy of finding balance in a turbulent life.

On Saturday, I took a train to London.

I love my woods and cabin, but after a week of Trump news, and the deep funk that followed with his two gender order, diversity order, and basically every order he made, I felt I needed a Craigie hug again.

Alas, John was in Scotland, but a wise woman suggested beauty might help instead. She thought I needed to refocus my attention, and since colour brings me a lot of joy, I plumped for art and culture. A trip to London, The Tate Modern and Southbank felt like a perfect way to wash off the Trump Musk.

Beauty and the Beast

On the journey down I was thinking all about inclusion and rejection, beauty and ugliness, sameness and difference, and how they all affected our happiness at a profound level.

For me, growing up as a tomboy and not being your typical girly-girl, I'd always had slight body dysmorphia. But I grew into a woman who was comfortable in her own skin, and being a musician and artist helped as I could live unconventionally.

Coming out as lesbian in the early 1990s was hard, too, knowing some people might reject me. My family didn’t, but lots of the music industry did, and often I was encouraged to hide it, wear more makeup and never mention it in interviews. I ignored their advice, to my career’s detriment probably, and these days make music independently.

Last year, I released an album that feels like the best, most honest record I’ve ever made. I love it and so do a lot of friends, and strangers, amazingly. Here it is on Spotify if you want to listen to it:

As for beauty, how can we even define it when it's so subjective? I know it’s something nebulous that I’m always trying to reach for in my music with the perfect song. And I'm aware there are certain laws to harmony. We hear it most strongly in the Perfect Fifth, when there’s a frequency ratio of 3:2. In art, we see it in colours 180 degrees apart on the colour wheel. In solids, there are The Five Platonic shapes that appear in nature and, some suggest, are blueprints for the universe. Even in health, when cells mutate, the result is dis-ease. Perhaps, then, beauty is just the default arrangement of things before they've been changed?

Lots of Happiness

As I left Liverpool Street heading for my adventures, pondering on the nature of harmony and how Trump had debunked mine, I randomly thought of Studio Ghibli. Their animations and stories, the Japanese aesthetics and philosophies generally, always made me feel good. And they always looked beautiful, too. I need to watch Up On Poppy Hill again, I thought to myself. And I should visit Japan one day, too. It’s still on my bucket list. Now that would make me very happy.

As I crossed the road and looked up, I saw a sign above my head.

It read, ‘Lots of Happiness’. I laughed. Then I looked for the name of the establishment on the window. It was a restaurant called ‘Japandi Kitchen'.

And I laughed again and thanked the universe. Point taken, I needed to refocus on the good stuff. And go to Japan.

All About Nagomi

From then on, everything seemed to go perfectly.

I spent the day thinking about harmony and found the perfect bowl of Pho. Next, I found the perfect shirt and stripy mittens. I’d lost my very ordinary gray pair the day before.

Then I drank the perfect poured coffee, after deciding not to stand for half an hour waiting for one at Monmouth.

Instead I found a great cup just around the corner at Redemption Coffee, a company that trains prison inmates how to roast beans and become baristas. It reminded me of Thistle Farms back in Nashville - another inspiring company that makes a positive difference in the world.

After a perfect walk along Southbank for a tour of the Tate, soaking up some Picasso and Dali, past Shakespeare's Globe to Borough Market, then back across the river towards Spitalfields, I found the perfect homemade mushy peas and chips at Poppies Fish & Chips.

And I got the seat beside the Juke Box playing some good ol’ rock and roll. Felt just like a Lucky Saint.

All of it was diverse, inclusive, original, extra-ordinary, creative, constructive, colourful, artistic, positive, hopeful, and all full of harmony and love.

My happiness returned.

Today I was looking for a Japanese word that might encompass all of that. I found the perfect one: Nagomi, a philosophy all about inclusivity, balance and harmony. In essence, love and peace.

Sending all of that and more to you now, dear reader.

Also, an old video and song of mine. Seems to resonate more than ever now.

With lots of happiness for your week,

Holly x

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