In the summer of 2018, we took a vacation with Alison’s family to Lake Michigan. In a beach house perched on a hill, we enjoyed an idyllic week of swimming, kayaking, sunset walks on the beach, and blueberry picking. Even in the heat of the August sun, the lake breeze kept us cool and comfortable.

During that week, I don’t know how it transpired, by my sister-in-law and I began to exchange haiku. A simple poem with a 5-7-5 pattern provided a perfect way to express a thought or experience. In many cases, the closing line offered an opening to make an amusing point.

Back home the next week, I wrote and published two haiku on my blog summarizing a day of cleaning the house. Then, I kept writing, adding one each day since.

For the past 1,000 days, a haiku has featured as the ending of my day’s posts on this blog. Some funny, many ordinary, they’ve summarized a particular aspect of that day.

I didn’t know how long this project would last, it was a momentum that just kept going. It takes less than 2 minutes to compose and format the poem, and it’s a delightful way to think about my day.

Now that this milestone is here, I’ve decided to end the project. It perfectly captured an insight into my days, and provided an impressive chronology of the past three years of my life. The posts will remain, and a full listing with links will stay active on my blog. It’s time to sunset this activity and move on to something new.

What began as a simple exchange blossomed into a beautiful body of art. Forever providing an intimate look into my life, I will look back on each haiku with delight.