Or - Perhaps - I Should Just

The Leaves Had Fallen From The Trees And Lay Crisp And Crackling Beneath His Feet. Picking One Up He Marveled, Not For The First Time, At The Perfection Of Nature Where Leaves Were Most Beautiful At The Very End Of Their Lives.

After Spending Most Of Her Life Scanning The Horizon For Slights And Threats, Genuine And Imagined, She Knew The Real Threat To Her Happiness Came Not From The Dot In The Distance, But From Looking For It. Expecting It. Waiting For It. And In Some Cases, Creating It. Her Father Had Jokingly Accused Her Of Living In The Wreckage Of Her Future. Until One Day She'd Looked Deep Into His Eyes And Saw He Wasn't Joking. He Was Warning Her.

I Went Through A Period In My Life When I Had No Friends, When The Phone Never Rang, When I Thought I Would Die From Loneliness. I Know That The Real Blessing Here Isn't That I Have A Book Published, But That I Have So Many People To Thank.

The Women In The Room Chatted About Love, About Childhood, About Losing Parents, About Mr. Spock, About Good Books They'd Read. They Mothered Each Other.

In Winter The Very Ground Seemed To Reach Up And Grab The Elderly, Yanking Them To Earth As Though Hungry For Them.