A balmy October day, so humid we had to throw open wide the windows in our writing studio for my Wednesday morning writing group, and start a cross breeze blowing.

It rained, sometimes hard, on my walk in the yellow-red woods. Today I am missing my mother and father; they were with me on my birthday, of course, and now they are gone. This week I visited some old dear friends of my father who have fondest memories of him and they spoke to me about their admiration and this made me miss him but happily. Also, this week, I wrote a poem for my mother - a love poem, which surprised me, because I have had to write through poems of conflicted feelings. When I brought the poem to my critique group Monday night, someone commented about it being a love poem. A love poem! Oh! That was very nice to realize because I may have more love poems to write to her.

Today I'm walking the day before my birthday. I'm blessed by the orange-yellow-red glow warming me in the center of this day.

All photos and text copyright Kelly DuMar 2017