Haibun: Hellos and Goodbyes
Life is always in motion. Even laying still, the lungs expand and contract. Might life just be motion itself?
In that, life is the process of hellos and goodbyes. Life is the obtaining and losing through decay or harsh words. I don’t know which is worse, the prolonged process of loss or the sudden shock of something loved that is gone?
But it is always different. And paying attention to my life, it will always be different. Even when things seem slow, as slow as a lazy summer day, it is as if each moment has a unique fingerprint. This second is one identity and the next, something new.
Because it is the folding and unfolding, the becoming and unbecoming of the moment. Swirl in and swirl out, always similar but never the same.
It is with that that I say goodbye, for now, to my sister, her husband, and my dear nieces and nephews as they head off to see the country on a bus named Doris. The ebbs and currents make for the pushes and pulls, the hellos and goodbyes in this swirling current of life.
river tilt-a-whirl, dizzy,
summer unfurls
