haiku for an autumn day

Those of you who keep up with both my blogs will know I’ve been under a lot of pressure lately, between visits and deadlines for my freelance work.  I was expecting to be free by now, out from under it all — but even more seems to have fallen on my shoulders in the past few days.

So I am not yet able to resume my normal schedule with regard to writing for my blogs and reading all of the lovely blogs I read for soul sustenance, and I’m far behind on my Artist’s Way journey, and I have way too much work and can hardly come up for air, and it’s work of the really unpleasant kind which devils my sleep, and I have brand new neighbors who are putting some kinks in my habitual way of life, and the garlic needs to get planted ASAP, and I’m worried about my grandfather, who is ill, and even my cat Leo Chapo just had to have emergency surgery and isn’t recovering quite as expected….

Tonight, I decided I deserved the evening off (my first non-working evening since September 23rd), mostly because I’ve hit some kind of wall of exhaustion where I feel physically sick.  While sitting in the big, red, velvety armchair with my feet up, reflecting that there are few pleasures to equal sitting absolutely still in a comfy seat while reading something uplifting and sipping something you like to drink, I stumbled upon this haiku by 18th-century Japanese poet Kobayashi Issa:

Simply trust:

Do not the petals flutter down,

Just like this?

Yes, they do.  I’ve seen them do it, “just like this.”

So I’m going to do likewise.

I can trust it’s going to be okay.  I am going to get through this rough patch eventually — and then I promise myself I will make time to write as much as I want* and let the day job go hang for a while.  (Nothing makes my life feel more cramped and uncomfortable than not making time to write.  Time to indulge my inner artist is the truest wealth.)

I’m making plans to visit my grandfather, as well, with lots of pictures of the garden in hand, and especially pictures of his heirloom beans going through their first season in my inexperienced hands.  And I’ll probably also carry a jar of the seeds that appeared in the last entry.  (Weren’t they gorgeous?)

By the way, I appreciate any and all good wishes, prayers, and energies of peace, love, and healing sent his way.  He is 83, and we both need to be able to simply trust at this time of our lives.

*(Almost every entry you’ve read here beginning in the last week of September was written ahead of time when I wasn’t under such a heavy load, and then published later — with the exception of very timely posts, such as the one about rose hips coming into peak ripeness, and the Pink Thursday piece.  Am I cheating on my promise to myself?  I don’t consider it as such because I wrote all of the entries and took all of the photographs, and something got posted every single day.  Besides, it’s the best I could do under the circumstances.)

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