NOVEMBER ATTRACTS THE WRITER ME BECAUSE OF THE STORM

Today the gusts of wind and near-freezing rain make it seem a chilling, nasty experience. Standing out here on this little embankment, above the Bog, affords me an enchanted panorama of the season in transition.....not quite winter but us oldtimers know it’s manifesting beyond this haunted place, and will soon dust over the hollow with fresh snow and drifts across the adjacent pinery. While it is a lonely place in appearance at this moment, veiled in part by a hovering mist, the barren qualities and the rain storm make this study quite compelling for the writer.....who indoors might simply huddle, with resignation, to hearthside, on such blustery mornings as this. Yet there is something spectacular unfolding here, and I can only see this as a storied place, with so much mystery, wisdom and life to bestow the watcher in the woods.

I can arrive here, at this same place, and bask on sunny noon-hours, sheltered from the wind by this enclave of brush and evergreen. Yet despite the rainfall, heavy at times, and the wind which is gusting now off the bay below, I could write for most of this day, comfortable in the embrace of weather that is profound and interesting......half expecting any moment to watch as some ghost of a former traveller, wanders along this same pathway down to the Bog....or that I will see some phantom creature ambling across the hollow, veiled in part by this ever-shifting low-level fog. I will see deer on the trail directly across from this embankment, and possibly a black bear if conditions prevail, and there are so many squirrels and birds overhead, as to make this a most dynamic place even in this low light, and chill of air and rain. I must bring the collar of my sweater up to keep the cold air from penetrating my soul.

I never have a writer’s conundrum in an environs like this. While on a sunny day I might rest upon a fallen tree, investigate tracks or observe the wildlife before heading back home, on powerful, unpredictable days like this, I am attached here, much as if I have actually taken root. I am compelled to be here to witness this transition of the seasons. I am rewarded, in kind. I have much to write about!