Clearly my world has changed in the last couple of days, and it’s fall. As I got ready for work this morning, I heard hard pinging on the skylight in the bathroom. At first I thought that strange, because we had no rain in the forecast. Then I realized it was acorns falling from the nearby oak tree. Not many branches extend as far as the skylight, but a couple do. However, this seemed to be too many pings relative to the probable supply of ready-to-fall acorns, and I realized it had to be wind pushing them from other branches onto the skylight.
Sure enough, when I went outside for my commute, a blustery wind greeted me; not strong enough to have been heard in the house, but strong enough to easily move leaves and push acorns. It’s definitely fall.
I got in my pickup and started it, and almost immediately lines for a haiku came to mind. This is my commuting writing endeavor. Either on the way to work or on the way home, though more often the former, a haiku will come to me while I’m driving. Typically the first line and perhaps the third line come right away. As I drive the 15.6 miles to my destination, I work on it in my mind. The second line will eventually come. By the time I get there, I have a completed haiku—subject to further revision, as always.
That’s if I don’t forget it between the time I park and get to a place where I can write it. So often the lines leave me, and another writing idea is lost. Today, however, the lines didn’t leave me. I had worked on them enough, especially massaging the second line, that by the time I got to my desk, then went and weighed and got coffee, came back to my desk, had my devotions, prayed, and woke up my computer, I pulled out one of the prior days from my desk calendar, and on the back of it wrote the haiku. I don’t know that it’s final, but it meets all the criteria I usually put into a haiku.
A haiku isn’t much, but it’s writing. It’s creativity focused. I’ll take it, and be glad for it during the Time Crunch. Just as I’ll take the little bit of research I can do a few days a week, in the letters of Thomas Carlyle, which will work towards a couple of future (maybe) projects.
The Time Crunch will pass and I’ll dedicate more time to writing. Meanwhile, I’ll have to find joy in these small snippets.