Whenever I see the vibrant colours of Fall on the trees: the reds of dogwood, maple, and burning bush, the mixture of neon yellows, hushed browns and luminescent greens in the oak, elm and willow; when I hear the squirrels, birds and chipmunks suddenly tread loud on the fallen leaves that crunch underfoot, I get a sense that the time to slow down and reflect has arrived, again.
Fall—a time of book festivals and book launches, a time of awards for literary excellence, and a time for readers to gather by their fireplaces and get lost inside pages because the world and the weather outside are turning inhospitable.
The green of Spring is wild, un•channelled, but the colours of Fall are enduring, varied and beautiful. Spring is promise offered, Fall is promise fulfilled. Fall is the promise of what life could turn out to be after the death of Winter, the rambunctiousness of Spring and the passion of Summer is over.
And so with our lives. Fall is a glorious time to shine, to take all that we have learned, to make sense out of them, and to spread them for everyone to revel in and enjoy – a time for life to be celebrated, not concealed.
As I am about to share my novel After the Flood with my readers later this month, these thoughts run through me. I wrote this book over seven Fall seasons. My mood, like the season I was writing in, was reflective: the novel talks about the Fall of Man, the Fall of this World, the Fall from Grace. But further along, it also talks about the promise of the New World emerging after the trial of destruction caused by the Flood, about the new Spring and the promise to be fulfilled in the next Fall.
As I go through my “pre•launch anxiety blues” I wonder if my readers will endure this journey with me until we arrive at that next nirvana, if indeed nirvana on earth is attainable.