I thought about my character, Michael Contelli, over the weekend as I took a walk through my neighborhood (pictured above) when the leaves on the trees looked glorious and the smell of fall was in the air.
Here’s what Michael says in my novel, “Beneath the Mimosa Tree,” about the season of autumn, or fall.
It’s my favorite season. I just love it.
* * *
From “Beneath the Mimosa Tree” — Michael’s perspective…
It was four in the afternoon when we arrived; a perfectly gray November sky graced the landscape, and the chill of autumn was in the air. Autumn was my favorite season. Some might say it prepared us for winter, a time to sleep and become rejuvenated for spring, and that fall was what happened before things died. I never felt that way about it. It always felt refreshing after the hot summers and the humidity. Fall came before the frosts and snow and that merry holiday, Christmas, which, as Dickens wrote, was the season of charity and forgiveness.
When I first came to London, catatonic and broken, I walked around aimlessly like a robot. When September and October came, I began to feel the healing air, the crisp fall breeze and the energy of the season. I walked everywhere. Walks through Hyde Park helped me leave a lot of crap behind. Fall doesn’t always mean the end of something. In fact, I wanted to believe it meant a new beginning.
