NEW WAYS OF SEEING

I have two sisters and more than a dozen cousins. We share a dry sense of humor, creativity, and curiosity. Recently, two of my relatives said something that made me pause and appreciate them even more. My closest sister Linda answered my question about favorite seasons by saying, "Favorite season? I've had that question before and have never been able to answer. Each season has its goodness and its badness. I think I welcome the change each season brings, not the season itself."

Donna Kaulkin, a writer friend (though I think of her as part of my extended family), answered in the opposite way: "When I lived on the East Coast, it was autumn, the raucous beauty and the nip in the air. Or maybe summer, when I could swim in the ocean and have fun on the boardwalk with friends and where I met my husband. Or maybe winter when we were snowed in, cozy and rosy, until cabin fever swept in. Or spring? Ah, spring--ask the poets." 

I had been so focused on one season as a response that I didn't think in those two different directions. Sure, I always pick autumn as my favorite season, but Linda and Donna offered other perspectives, the time when the seasons change, and the beauty and memories of each season.

"Autumn"  
 a painting made from failed watercolors by Martha Slavin

Janet, a cousin, sent our first card of the holiday season. It was a simple looking email with its edges decorated in nature. She asked, "What books am I grateful for?" the first question of a thoughtful advent calendar she has designed. I was taken aback by the question, just as I had been to the responses from my sister and my friend about the seasons.

I had thought of books that influenced my life, such as Mary Poppins and Jane Eyre for their depiction of strong women, spiritual texts that offered moral guidance, and The Wild Places and Wild Comfort, two books that showed me to look and think deeper about the natural word. My list includes all the original writings, such as Dante's Divine Comedy and Cervantes' Don Quixote, from my college humanities classes that broaden my view of the world, and books about writing by Natalie Goldberg,  Perrine's Sound and Sense and Koch's Wishes, Lies, and Dreams, which I used as a teacher and to develop my own writing. I hadn't thought of the idea of being grateful for those books. I knew their value in shaping my life, but now I can say thank you to those authors who came into my thoughts through their words on a page.

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Here's a chance to read some of Donna Kaulkin's stories. You will be better for it!

https://donnatellsstories.com/category/stories/

Other writers that I have mentioned before:

Robert MacFarlane, The Wild Places

Kathleen Dean Moore, Wild Comfort

Dante, Divine Comedy

Cervantes, Don Quixote

Natalie Goldberg, Writing Done the Bones,

Kenneth Koch, Wishes, Lies, and Dreams

Laurence Perrine, Sound and Sense

November's Window View