とし月が
しずけさくれて
味ふかし
With age and time,
quiet settles deeper—
flavor grows.
In your twenties, you want your life to happen all at once.
You think if you miss one train, the whole station disappears.
You stay up too late, chase too much, say yes to things that hollow you out.
You think life is a fire that needs more wood—more cities, more people, more stories.
But with time, you learn.
The fire doesn’t need more.
It needs tending.
I learned this not through philosophy or books,
but through strange, unremarkable moments—
the kind that don’t seem important until years later,
when they return in your hands like a warm bowl of something familiar.
Years ago, I made polenta for a woman I hardly knew.
She had shown up at my apartment in Ljubljana after a night of too much wine and too many people.
She sat on the edge of my sofa like a guest in her own body.
Eyes half-closed, head tilted like she was trying to stay in the room.
I remembered how my mother used to make polenta when I was sick.
She’d stir it slow, whispering about timing, about texture.
She said it wasn’t food. It was repair.
I had no medicine, no good advice.
But I had a pot and a wooden spoon.
So I made polenta. No butter, just salt and patience.
I placed it in her hands without saying anything.
She took one bite and said, “I feel like something is putting me back together.”
And maybe something was.
Here’s the lesson:
The small things you do become tools.
You don’t know when you’ll need them,
but someday, someone will walk into your life
and you’ll be ready.
Like the washing machine.
I once helped carry one down six flights of stairs in July with a stranger named Ivan.
No gloves. No warning.
We laughed at first, then sweated, then swore.
My hands were wrecked for days.
But later, when a friend asked me to help her move,
I didn’t flinch.
I showed up with gloves, straps, tape for the machine doors, and a bottle of Pocari Sweat.
We got it down in under ten minutes.
“You’ve done this before,” she said.
I nodded.
“Once badly. Now properly.”
That’s what age does:
It quietly prepares you.
You gather experience the way a tree gathers rings—slowly, invisibly, with each passing season.
You don’t even notice until you’re standing in someone else’s storm
with the exact umbrella they need.
I’ve learned how to read moods before words are spoken.
How to boil tea that makes people cry and not ask why.
How to give space instead of solutions.
A while ago, I sat in silence with someone grieving.
We didn’t talk. I just peeled an orange and handed her half.
It was all she needed.
Not answers.
Just something sweet.
Something human.
And then there are the things you learn to let go of.
Like needing to be right.
Or needing everyone to like you.
Or needing life to happen on schedule.
You stop needing closure.
You stop explaining your choices.
You begin to see that what makes something meaningful
is often what remains unspoken.
So what gets better with age?
You do.
But not louder. Not faster.
You get quieter.
You become more precise in how you love.
More fluent in presence.
More aware of when to speak and when to hold a hand and say nothing.
You learn to walk into a kitchen, boil water,
and make something that says,
I see you, and you’re safe here.
Wabi-sabi lesson:
Life doesn’t reward urgency.
It rewards presence.
What you do gently today becomes someone’s comfort tomorrow.
A pot of polenta.
A way to carry a washing machine.
An orange split in silence.
So go live.
Learn by doing.
Mess things up and remember how.
Because one day, someone will need you—
not for your perfection,
but for your preparedness.
And you’ll find that you’re ready.
Because you’ve lived.
And that makes all the difference.
life 