Every wonderful thing

Colorful countryside greets us everywhere we go these days.    Even gray-skied rainy days like the one we have here today seem to lose some of their gloom when we round a corner or come up over a hill and are startled by the brilliance that Mother Nature has provided.  A feast for the senses.

I was at a meeting yesterday when someone asked me how, as a writer, I could “do justice” to the beautiful October days we have been experiencing.    “Isn’t it hard to put this kind of beauty into words?” she asked.  I was thinking about that on my drive home and recalled reading a wonderful statement about October written by New England author Elizabeth George Speare.  

Speare spent most of her nearly 90 years living in the heart of a region noted for its beautiful landscapes.  She once said that she always tried to include bits and pieces about the countryside in the scenes that she created.   Looking at her writing you can “live” in the places she describes, because her words are so vivid.   And then I found that statement I remembered, and here it is:

“After the keen still days of September, the October sun filled the world with mellow warmth...The maple tree in front of the doorstep burned like a gigantic red torch. The oaks along the roadway glowed yellow and bronze. The fields stretched like a carpet of jewels, emerald and topaz and garnet. Everywhere she walked the color shouted and sang around her...In October any wonderful unexpected thing might be possible.”

 

Autumn in the New England hillsides

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