Tag: lockdown

The Waxing Moon

The waxing moon. Credit: Unsplash.

The moon is waxing gibbous tonight. It’s hard not to notice its brightness. Tomorrow it’ll be a full moon and the day after that begin its waning phase. In the unusual circumstances of a once in a century pandemic and the subsequent lockdowns we’ve had to endure, the sight of the moon doing its thing, perhaps ever since our solar system came to be, is a welcome sight.

Fay Aoyagi, a haiku poet, writes in “Moon in the Haiku Tradition”:

[…] you will find many ways to say ‘moon’ in Japanese saijiki [a dictionary of seasonal terms used by haiku poets]. For example, the full moon may be called gyokukon (round soul) or sasaraeotoko (small but lovely man – a nickname for the moon).

So keep your eyes open tomorrow night. You’ll see a small but lovely man in the sky.

26th February 2021 Add Comment

One Reason to Write a Book

First draft in progress.

I’m three quarters the way through the first draft of my first book. When the world first went into lockdown last spring I figured it was as good a time as any to start since I was getting paid indefinitely to stay at home, but sometime in the summer I stalled and I haven’t picked the book up since.

When I still had momentum, writing two pages a day on the advice of David McCullough, I remember how receptive I was to anything that might relate to the book as though the days and weeks of consistent work turned me into a charged magnet. Because writing a book takes a long time and demands you venture into the unknown of the next blank page, despite whatever thorough research and outlines you may have, you can’t help but discover things.

I’ll pick the book up again, eventually.

1st January 2021 Add Comment