A HAIBUN

(Prose piece followed by a poem)

A DAY IN MY LIFE

I wake up in the morning as the first light creeps through the window blinds.

After some stretching, I haul myself from my warm cocoon and stagger into

the bathroom for the first tasks of the day. 

Next a quick shower, then out to greet the cats and stroke them both.  Cat food

for them, juice for me. 

While they are eating and washing up afterwards I go down to my room in the

basement, for my spiritual ritual and physical exercise afterwards, dancing to

Daft Punk and hanging upside down on the inversion table.

Finally, after cleaning up after the cats, it’s time for breakfast, for me always 3 pieces

of toast with cheese and almond butter, marmite and jam (not all together!) with

a cup of herbal tea.  While I eat I read the latest story on my Kindle.  Best part of

the day!  Finally I can’t drag breakfast out any longer.  After cleaning away the

breakfast things, I feel compelled to start on the rest of the chores my better self 

has dictated for that day.

Depending on what day it is, I will have to go downstairs and get the acupuncture

clinic ready for patients, or start sitting at the computer for a marathon session of

online scrabble with my sisters, one in Denmark, one in Australia, followed by

checking emails, signing petitions, paying bills and/or reading and writing poetry. 

Oh, yes, also playing with the cats.

Somewhere in between all these things I make my one and only delicious cup of

coffee – my second best part of the day.

If clinic is in session, my computer time is squashed into fifteen minute segments,

since I have to attend to patients, set up rooms in between sessions and make

appointments.  I get plenty more exercise on those days, walking up and down

eighteen steps, from the clinic to upstairs and back again.

Lunch around 1 pm. then more of the same till around 5 p.m., time for the cats’

dinner, followed by the humans’ dinner a couple of hours later after the clinic has

closed, or, on free days, all the “designated chores” are done.

Around 6:30 or 7 p.m. it’s change clothes now, off with the day clothes and on

with the pajamas.  Nowadays we very rarely go out in the evening.

We look forward to quiet evenings watching streamed political satire or travel

documentaries till weariness overtakes us both and we toddle off to bed.

Somehow the days fly by, filled with variety, meeting patients on clinic days

and friends through our various outside occupations and hobbies.

If there’s nothing much happening that day, I create an interesting challenge for

myself, so I very rarely feel bored.

 A DAY IN MY LIFE

Light streams through blinds

bleary face in mirror

sinuous felines flow past

to munch food contentedly.

Yellow lotus is meditation focus,

toast to crunch while

reading Kindle story.

Type answers to 

online scrabble game

with delicious hot coffee,

then down carpeted stairs

to receive patients,

endless changing of

sheets in rooms.

Quiet end of day brings

pajamas and relaxation,

Househunters International,

dozing cats and

sleeping humans.