Letters from Higo 📮🇯🇵

Location: Calgary, AB

Dear Moon,

Orientation just ended.

The room is finally quiet. My roommate is out with her family and I’m on the hotel bed, still wearing the same clothes I barely had time to change into this morning (but of course having changed into slippers)

It’s strange how fast the day moved – just how loud it was. A 5 a.m. wake up, a blur of flights and waiting, scrambling for luggage, dropping it off just to move again. I was almost late. My stomach in knots the whole time.

There wasn’t any time to feel anything.

But now, the quiet has caught up to me.

The orientation itself was fine – loud, a little awkward, somewhat helpful. We laughed too hard at things that weren’t funny. I started to feel the shape of what this year might bring. Not just a job but a shared story that we are all fumbling through. Together.

Now I can finally breathe. No one is talking. No one is rushing. Just the hum of the AC and deep stillness that shows up on these kind of days.

I am grateful for it but a little lonely too. But in a good way.

If you’ve ever come down from a whirlwind of a day – how do you find yourself again in the quiet that followed?

With my slippers on and my guard down,

Ari