Today I turn 46! That many years ago in a small hospital in Indiana, at 19:40 central time, I was born. Which means roughly 46 years ago from when this post goes up, I was born! Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life or whether that station will be held by anybody else, this post... will not show. Unlike David Copperfield, I am not quite at the end of my own personal adventure and have yet to see how it all turns out. Good, I hope!

Anyway, with that needless literary reference out of the way, on to the matter at hand: it's now the 7th here in Japan, so by that clock my day is over, but it's still my birthday day where many of you are reading this, so double the celebration! The temple bell tolls.

^{Temple Bell by Koho}

I've previous done birthday posts on Hive for my 40th and my 45th. That's a few to read, so I'll not repeat myself too much here. If you want more reflections than I give here, be sure to go read those two posts. In last year's post both @consciouscat and @opidia gave me fortunes as gifts, a Human Design one and an astrology one. After I write this I'll have to go look up their words to see how accurate the predictions were. I'm not rich yet.... but maybe this next year!

As I mentioned in those posts, I still don't feel my age. Everyone keeps telling my how my body was suppose to start falling apart at age 40—and I've watched as classmates have started falling apart and, in some cases, have already died due to poor health—but I keep going, feeling just about the same as ever. Well, not entirely the same. It is harder to keep up with my kids. But they are still at the age where their energy goes up every year, while mine is probably the reverse. But that aside, I'll credit Japanese food for my good fortune so far. Nattō is suppose to be great for heart health, among other things, preventing plaque and keeping cholesterol low—and I eat the stuff daily—so if we are going to credit anything, let's credit that. I also bike about 3-6 km daily according to my Apple watch, so three cheers for exercise.

If you want to try some, I've written about it before. Wonderful stuff!

^{Doesn't that look amazingly good??}

In a post from the other day, @ericvancewalton wrote:

In this world
beauty is rarely
long with us,
so we must
embrace imperfection,
learn to trust it,
before we rust
into oblivion.

Beauty is, I think, in my past (if I ever had it in the first place), but hopefully I have a ways to go before I rust. As for embracing imperfection... maybe that's why I'm still going. (That and nattō! See above.)

The Temple Bell

The title of this post "the temple bell tolls" refers to one of my favorite haiku. It's a New Years haiku, but also a birthday one, so it may be out of season to print it here but it's not inappropriate.

年とらぬつもりなりしが鐘の鳴る
toshi toranu tsumori narishi ga kane no naru

never to grow old
was my intention...
the temple bell tolls
—Jokun

I've posted this haiku on Hive several times over the years and I've probably translated it differently every time. The gist of it, anyway, is basically what you see there. Old Jokun heard the temple bell ring and he knew he was one year older, then he reflected that he never intended to get old, but it happened anyway. One might be reminded of how the Grinch tries his hardest to prevent Christmas, but it comes just the same.

In old Japan, they didn't celebrate birthdays as the anniversary of the day of your birth as we do these days, but rather all birthdays were on New Years day when your age went up. And when the New Year arrives at midnight, the temple bell tolls its last of 108 times to announce the new year has come. Knowing that bit about birthdays, we can see that same bell also announced everyone was now one year older.

The temple bell tolls...

A Birthday Celebrated

Last year I started a tradition that I want to continue this year. In my favorite fiction book, Lord of the Rings, Bilbo, who is celebrating his eleventy-first birthday, informs us that hobbits don't receive gifts on their birthdays, but instead give them. That seems like a fun idea, doesn't it? Well... since I doubt any of you vultures (I kid, I kid) are going to get me anything, I might as well give something away instead to have a bit of fun.

I'm now 46, so I have forty-six HSBI waiting to go to the first forty-six people to leave comments on this post. To make sure you are reading this post and not just jumping on the bandwagon of free stuff, tell me your favorite Lord of the Rings character and why they're your favorite, or—if you are one of those odd people who don't like LotR—what is your favorite book and why?

Do that and be one of the first forty-six comments and get some HSBI! And if I don't get 46 comments... well, I'll give the leftover units away randomly.

❦

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. He blogs here and at laspina.org. Write him on Twitter or Mastodon.