Two years! Ariana’s Blog quietly turns another page today. Another anniversary, another orbit around this little sun of words.
Small but meaningful changes have crept in. I’ve been trying to write more independently, to keep AI assistance at some distance except grammar debugs. There’s a certain procrastination settling in — perhaps next year I’ll shake it off a bit. My taste in classical music has evolved, too — reshaped by evenings spent in concert halls instead of restaurants, my shopping and dining budgets willingly surrendered to (a lot of) Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninov and Chopin.
For the year ahead, I wish both my emotions and the blog’s updating rhythms be more stable. And also, I may better organize these scattered daily fragments into more coherent passages.
Guangzhou downtown, taken on the plane on my way back home.
It’s summer now. Summer feels like the season outside of time, hovering between an ending and a beginning. Like, for me the years are still divided not by calendars but by “school years” — September to late May, sometimes stretching into early July. And then comes summer. Is it the quiet closure of the year past, or the first breath of the one to come?
“To make an end is to make a beginning.” Summer gathers all the stored energy of the months before and scatters it in sparks: changes, ignitions, meditations, reunions, farewells.
This year I’ve wandered, too — across cities and myself. The blog walks with me, its footprints pressed alongside my own, collecting thoughts and impressions as I move through my small world and our vast universe. If you’ve found yourself here, thank you for walking a little way with me.
May you be well — now, and always.