This post is my response to autumn's beckoning. I am privileged to have the months of September and October off from work each year and, here in Oregon, those are often lovely, extended-summer-like months. But as the calendar pages flip to the date of my return to work I am lifted by the colors that mean fall has come to the Northwest and that there is still brightness around me. The visual images that lead me back to work include brilliant yellows in the vineyards of the Willamette Valley, radiant red leaves on the blueberry fields that dot the landscape, both commercial crops and backyard patches, and finally the red and oranges of the trees in our own backyard. There is such beauty in plants as they go into their shut-down phase... I hope that I can also maintain some of that brightness through my return-to-work transition next week!
