Red Maple in Autumn (© Magi Nams)
For me, writing is an exhilarating but intense experience best interspersed with small house chores, a walk to the mailbox, or quick garden/yard tasks, the idea being to periodically get my shoulders down from around my ears. For a break this morning, I carried a knife and large bowl down to the now nearly empty vegetable garden. There, I hacked off heads of Savoy and regular cabbage (no decapitations in my novel!), using the knife tip to flick slugs and caterpillars from their refuges in spaces between the outer cabbage leaves. Into the bowl went the heads, followed by small, secondary heads of broccoli and miniscule Brussel sprouts (not one of this year’s gardening successes) which I rubbed off the stalks.
Discarded cabbage leaves lay crinkled and scalloped on dark earth. Nearby, fading dill plants leaned haphazardly. The ferny tops of asparagus shone silver with moisture. Late raspberries hung red and lush when all else was ending. And around me, the richness of autumn painted a glorious landscape without using a single word.
