The secret to getting beautiful pictures this time of winter is to go into the woods early, near sunrise, when the morning light is a charm. And I was so happy we did; the freshly lit sky was so exquisite: first, a moon on blue surrounded by the black bare branches, then, a blue tree, and blue river clouds, and foggy mist rising in the wetlands to the tops of the gold trees, and finally, a blue puddle with a red peaked roof at Medfield State hospital. All week or more I’ve been lucky to find one photo to feed my spirit, and today was a bounty. It was a rich day for so many reasons, and one particularly pleasing one: I have been waiting since late September to hear from a publisher about my poetry manuscript, hoping for an answer before the new year, and also realizing any news could be a no. For my son’s birthday in early December, I ordered him some shoes online, as it turns out, from a store in London. He decided to return them, and he’s been asking me daily if I’ve gotten an e-mail that they’ve been returned. I have a few e-mail addresses, some very old ones that I don’t use except for things like ordering shoes or other online purchases. So, I have been checking this address that I go weeks without looking at. And scrolling down the countless meaningless spammy e-mails that clutter this account, I was looking for the shoe purchase when I noticed one that named the manuscript I had submitted. Strange, because I had not used this e-mail address for my submission. And it was from the publisher, with an offer and contract. I wouldn’t have seen it except for the shoes that didn’t fit my son. I wrote back, immediately accepting the offer. Happily, girl in tree bark, poems and prose, will be published, just as I had hoped, in the new year.