Yesterday was a rough day. It was a holiday! Yet... it was rough. Why? My wife convinced me to give up caffeine for awhile. No coffee, no tea. The morning started fine, but by afternoon it was getting to me.
At one point, I wrote this:
headache throbbing — the joy of
giving up caffeine
In fairness, it's not just my wife suggesting it for health reasons. Many people suggest getting away from caffeine for awhile. Famed botanist Michael Pollan wrote last year about his trials of giving up caffeine for awhile and seeing how it affected him. I really enjoyed his pieces about that experiment. Some alternative doctors suggest limiting and even completely giving up caffeine for the good of the body. Many of the diets that promote limited fasting suggest no caffeine during the fasts. On a spiritual level, many suggest giving up caffeine for awhile simply to let them body and mind feel what it is like to not be dependent on a drug.
All good ideas—in theory. Actually doing it... that's another story, isn't it? I could feel the withdrawal headache coming from a little before noon; it hit after lunch and gave a low throb of pain to the rest of my day. The tiredness also hit. I could keep it away as long as I was moving, but as soon as I sat down, my mind wanted to shut down. Not entirely unexpected. Pollan talked about how the first day was the hardest, and we can imagine that might be the case.
I made it through at any rate. And today I've been going without caffeine again. So far so good! But we'll see how it goes...
Depending on how you want to classify things, this is more a senryū than a haiku. Senryū is same in form as haiku, a short poem that may or may not be in the form of 5-7-5. The only difference is that whereas haiku focuses on nature (primarily), senryū focuses on human folly.
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David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. |
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