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Days in Niseko

A few days ago I lay on the turquoise blue bed of my acupuncturist Masashi-san at Dome Therapy Niseko, long needles placed with quiet precision in various parts of my body, listening to the rain insisting against the windows and the gentle melody of the Totoro theme drifting through the room. I thought about writing. I thought about the future just ahead of us, still unformed, still full of the particular combination of possibility and anxiety that the future always carries w

Ivana Petersen

5 hours ago5 min read

Never Stop Dreaming

Last night I danced Bachata in Kyoto. I want to let that sentence sit for a moment, because it is the kind of sentence that should not exist and yet does — the kind that could only belong to this life, this year, this particular constellation of decisions that led me, somehow, to a small café called Rumbita in one of Japan’s most ancient cities, moving to Latin music with a Frenchman who did speak English but the facts is that he actually didn’t need to. Moving in the rhythm

Ivana Petersen

Jun 226 min read

The Name in the Cup

There are days that arrive quietly and become, without announcing themselves, something you will carry for a long time. Today was one of those. Ginkakuji area on a tender early afternoon. My dear friend Irene and I found ourselves at a small restaurant in this neighbourhood of Kyoto that holds its beauty without advertising it — old wooden facades, narrow streets that feel like they belong to a different century, the particular hush of a place that has not tried very hard to

Ivana Petersen

Jun 36 min read

The way of water

I am writing this while a typhoon passes over Kyoto. The rain is not falling so much as being thrown — sideways, in sheets, with an insistence that makes the ordinary sounds of the city entirely disappear. Everything outside the window is moving: the trees, the puddles, the air itself. Kyoto, which is usually so composed, so deliberate, has been temporarily returned to something wilder and older than its careful streets suggest. I find it, unexpectedly, beautiful. I have been

Ivana Petersen

Jun 29 min read

Arigatō Gozaimasu

Transitioning to Japan was easy. Like returning to something you already knew would be good. We were ready to leave Haeundae Beach — and I want to come back to that, because by the end we had made something real out of those last weeks in Busan, found our corners and our people and our rhythms, the way we always eventually do. But the leaving itself, when it finally came, felt right. The timing was right. We were ready. The journey was unremarkable in the best possible way. H

Ivana Petersen

May 317 min read

Not All Bad is Bad

Yesterday was heavy. After writing club and a beach meetup, I accepted what my knee had been quietly telling me for days — that it was not ready, that pushing it would cost more than the workout was worth — and chose a walk instead. My husband met me and we went to Tide, the coffee shop that had been sitting on my radar since we arrived in Busan, slightly too far, slightly too late-opening, never quite fitting the architecture of my mornings. I want to tell you about Tide, be

Ivana Petersen

May 54 min read

The Full Circle: A Year of Shedding and Returning

January 2, 2025 I am lying in the quiet basement of an apartment building, the world upstairs still muffled and asleep. Beside me, Anton is a warm weight, his breathing a steady rhythm that anchors me to the present. Outside the window, a cold wind streams down the glass, but here, under a chunky blanket, I am tucked into a pocket of warmth. Looking back, the timeline of my soul feels like a perfect, winding circle. January 2024 – This time last year, we were on our way to V

Ivana Petersen

Jan 13 min read