NORTHWEST IN NOVEMBER

I'd forgotten what it felt like to walk outside and be overtaken by the smell of pine. What a smell! In and out you breathe it. Immediately your body tunes in to the experience. Your breathing is no longer an automatic response while doing other things. Now, it becomes the focus. It's so sweet. You close your eyes and take in a few deep, consecutive breaths. Relief. Somehow it makes you feel more alive. And the changing colors of the leaves... brilliant! There can be three different colors on one branch! Green where the branch meets the trunk, turning into orange and accelerating into a bright yellow at the tip.

One morning, my brother spotted a coyote in the back yard. He chased him back into the woods before my Dad could get the BB gun. Scare tactic. The beast was gone before i got to the window. I walked outside just to feel the grass underneath my feet. Wet and spongy.