The past three days have been smoky grey, sunless, and speckled with a rain so light that it seems almost an illusion, Suddenly there are puddles in the street and a wet film everywhere. And I have been watching in wonder street trees definitively turning to gold, some of them rich with a deep coppery gold like resounding bass notes in this orchestra of beauty. Others seem sprayed with captured bits of sun, light luminous gold scattered between gleaming wet branches. Leaves that have stayed a dusky green are thick, and seem ready to stay where they are, no matter what the weather has in store, but with each day a thin golden carpet has been steadily filling in across the damp grey streets, turning the streets of Manhattan to gold despite the insult of machinery, the crush and hurtle of cars and bicycles, the steady tread of people on the pavements.
I try not to think of the winter that is to come.
Meanwhile, I had my first event for Footprints on the Heart at the Players Club. It was a wonderful moment, people gathering and listening as I read from my first novel, and then letting me know how much they liked the sound of it and coming over to the sales table to buy the book. May the word-of-mouth begin!
I was leg-wobbling nervous and could hear my voice wobbling along with my legs, demonstrating (at least to me) how nervous I was to stand on a stage and present.
But the microphone was perfectly placed, the podium the right height, and the audience so receptive that I soon lost my panic and began to enjoy myself, and the comments that followed lit a glow in my heart that echoed the gold-dappled fall landscape that thrilled me on the ride home.