It happens when it is least expected. Today it was upon returning from my forest walk. I walked through the rocks, ice and slush, my wooden staff, in reality a broom handle, slipping on the ground as I enjoyed every slippery step out among the trees, and really living the moment in the Zen Buddhist way, or my version of it.

In my forest I find my book again. I never need to take notes as the story progresses among the trees, and when I go back to my solitary cabin for a cardamon tea, I leave it behind, knowing I’ll pick it up when I return and when it has taken enough shape and form I will sit down and whittle down into book format.

This one is called ‘Put Your Lips Together,’ its about a whistleblower and set in southwest Finland, and is in the Scandinavian crime noir genre.

But just when I am enjoying these moments, I catch the aroma of delicious food drifting into the edge of the forest from the village I have walked far to, and it takes me back, into that false comfort zone of nostalgia, and walking in the gardens of the Japanese embassy years ago, with teriaki grill pervading through the trees.

That Zen garden was a pocket of Japan near the United Nations in Geneva, and it made all things Japanese just that little bit more attractive, like her kimono did.

“The kingfisher is a symbol of our city,” she said, as snowflakes floated. “It is also a symbol in haiku.” In those days, I never dared write a haiku, and only read them.

In my forest the snow twirls, lands on the evergreen pine trees. I tap the ice with my staff, or broom stick, and resolve to write a haiku along the wood in Japanese characters. I take a careful step on a slippery stone, planting the staff into a small puddle. But it is not really this broom stick that keeps me from falling, I know.

kingfisher
part of my feng shui
keeping balance in nature