16

“Fifty” in Roman

numerals at least makes me

young on paper: “L.”

 

It’s true. A 39-year-old comes out far worse in Roman numerals: XXXIX ! Even when I get to fifty-one, I’ll still have a leaner, cleaner look:  LI.

Despite writing a month-long haiku series based on my last month as a 50-year-old, I’m still not vain or superstitious like, say, the NFL, who for the fiftieth Super Bowl chucked the Roman numeral naming tradition for the event and called it “Super Bowl 50” because “L” (for them) had connotations of “loser” or “loss” (the opposite of “W” for “win” or “won”).

No worries for me. I’ll proudly carry my L (and LI); I’ll consider at as “LIving”…

Leaving L…

Stay tuned for a new haiku each day (or evening)…

Doctor Don

——————–

…a haiku series from my last month as a first-year quinquagenarian.

As with many things in life, this just happened.

I had this grand vision of taking a month-long road trip the year I turned 50 and writing a book about the experience, including thoughts and observations on my life (and life in general) so far.

Well, as John Lennon sang–but didn’t originate–in “Beautiful Boy,” life “is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”  So, no trip and no book (yet).

One night a few weeks ago, I woke up from a recliner nap and boom!  I got an idea.  No rhyme, no reason, it just came to me:  For my last month as a 50-year-old, I would write a haiku each night to capture the experience. 

As the Poetry Foundation reminds us, a haiku is “a Japanese verse form most often composed, in English versions, of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables. A haiku often features an image, or a pair of images, meant to depict the essence of a specific moment in time” [my emphasis].

Each night for one month I will write and post a haiku.  By September 17, the end-result will be a 30-haiku series.  At that time, I’ll (hopefully) be starting a new year and chapter of what I call my “Age of Quinquagenarius.”