Fall Harvest

The flowers are at their most vibrant this time of year--the deep velvet purple of the salvias, the dark wine burgundy of the dahlias, the pink, phosphorescent glow of the celosias. . . Part of the magnificent symphony of color before winter closes in. I could never live where this rush of color was always upon me, somewhere like Fiji or Mauii--it would spoil me, maybe even desensitize me. . . I love the seasons where there are turns and rests, much like a good story that fires, then smolders, stirring our blood, then cooling it down. . .

Expectation

On this cusp of spring, expectation is in the air, the buds quivering on the trees, the green of the bulbs pushing their way through the frozen ground. It is as if we all, on this side of the hemisphere, take a collective breath and hold. . . and it seems to me that a good story elicits this same response. We read with anticipation, expecting a flowering of insight or understanding when we reach the end, and, if not, we are disappointed, let down by the writer. Not that every story must lead to some great epiphany, but there must be at least the slightest shift in pereception, like the setting sun casting its rich hues on the garden, and then, swiftly, night falls.