Two Autumns

July 2
Monday

If all goes as planned, this blog--my bastard haibun--will play a large part in how I live for the next year. Yes, I will use it as a journal. More importantly, I will use it to impose discipline on an undisciplined life. I do not want this year to be wasted.  I may not have many left. So to be of value this must be more than a record of the year . . . It must be a record of my self-examination and development through the year. It should change my life rather than simply record it. I must explore ideas and new experiences, and observe and examine my life--past and present. It is to be used to build and strengthen constructive behavior and rid myself of the destructive. To what purpose?  Growth emotionally and spiritually. Easy to say. Harder to do.

I expect there will be joy and sadness. That is much of what life is; the joyous and the sad. Sometimes they walk with one following right after the other, and sometimes one may straggle along behind. Sometimes they are so close they nearly trip each other up, and sometimes like contestants in a three-legged race they lurch along together. Whatever happens, one is never far from the other; always within shouting distance.

Sometimes we get to choose which leads, and sometimes we are led. I do not doubt that how we view things can effect which leads much of the time.

This is the record and measure of the year. The method to be used is a very loose approximation of the Japanese art of Haibun. The definition of haibun (you won't find this in your Merriam-Webster's Collegiate) is perhaps best understood as a prose/poetry text, usually describing a journey. The best known is Matsuo Basho's The Narrow Road to the Deep North, written circa 1689. He writes short prose passages joined together by even shorter poems; Japanese haiku.

Japanese Haiku form is traditionally three verses consisting of five, seven and five syllables, having a word hinting at or revealing the season and a noticeable break.

What I have here is not truly haibun, nor are the poems true haiku, at least technically. What is here is my best effort at haibun/haiku. Let me be first to say I am well aware of my limitations. Hence my description: Bastard haibun. By the end of the year I hope to know more about writing and myself.  

Unlike Basho, I have begun my journey without leaving home. A physical trip to Mexico is in the offing--but only after the sale of my house. To prepare for this journey much must be packed and much unpacked.

There is nothing easy about leaving. Friends will remain behind. I'll be separated from my church family and in a foreign country. That will cause some sadness.

A haiku of Taniguchi Buson (1715-83)accompanies the photo below. It beautifully describes the sadness inherent in good-byes. The translation is Harold Henderson's. The photo is mine--a reflection of autumn.

For me who go,

for you who stay--

two autumns

                                           Taniguchi Buson

There will be joy, too. There is much to be discovered on the journey. New people, new places, new things to join the old.

Holding a flower;
chasing a butterfly--
A young child's laughter!