Carousels of red and gold leaves are swirling in my yard as I write this – a blur of autumn’s fallen rainbows. The music they are making with gusts of excited chatter is sweet, as if the rustling leaves are remembering highlights of the summer just past. It’s been a grand season of newness, renewals and memories...
But
the musical gusts will soon rise to a roar according to the forecast, and I’ve
got my snow smile on because by the time you read this I should be out stormskiing
full throttle. Now, now, no need to hunch your shoulders against the chill and
mutter invectives. You are probably in a warm house where you can stay pretty
much all winter. Watching the White Cathedral through glass is permitted. And
that first snowfall is always a Currier & Ives print – perfect crystals
wafting down like descending angels in the nimbus of a streetlamp as you watch
from the soundless darkness of a bedroom..
About
that snow smile...actually,
I always smile. Can’t help it. It’s like there’s energy leaking out of
me. If I frown, my white blood cells
immediately attack it. My mother always smiled, and I used to wonder why. What was
she thinking? I guess I decided it was just a reflex. But now I think she was.
Thinking, I mean. She was inside other people’s heads – and hearts – looking
around in sync with their thoughts and feelings. Call it compassion or empathy.
With me it’s a little different, because I don’t have anywhere near her
magnanimity. I get as far as people’s heads but not always their hearts. In any
case, probing people is interesting and touching and always informative. My
mother lived into her 90s and died gardening. So typical of her to be nurturing
something outside herself. That’s a wonderful metaphor for her – tending flowers
as she left on the next phase of her magical journey. Eternity is impossible to
imagine without her. I’m the healthiest of a family with extreme longevity, so maybe
I have time to reach where she reached. As someone recently posted on FB: “Your life is your garden/your
thoughts are your seeds/if your life isn’t awesome/you’ve been watering weeds.”
Need
a flower to tend, a passionflower or a forget-me-not.
We
all settle on a plot of metaphorical land, some to cultivate, some to trade up like
real estate, some simply to slowly dig their own grave. I want to find the
universe in my patch of life and share whatever insights and revelations appear.
How does YOUR garden grow?
Thanks to Chuck Hines, Olympic torchbearer and Water Polo Hall of Fame award winner who lives in North Carolina, for the kind mention of me in his new novel WATER POLO WHIZ. Double down on that to Robert Jones who mentions me a couple of times in his new book FORENSICS 103.
And I’m happy to see that my own new novel CASE WHITE is garnering stellar reviews. This is the book that hopefully will cross-over between the different sets of fans in a fragmented career. My first major hardcover was ID-ed as literary satire and the Chicago Tribune pegged me as a John Irving, John Barth, William Gaddis and Kurt Vonnegut Jr all rolled into one. 90 publications of books, stories and translations later, plus honors/awards, my labels have somehow expanded to encompass mystery, thriller, historical, mainstream, literary, contemporary, horror, fantasy, romance, western, gothic, science fiction, spiritual, espionage and adventure. Man, I feel like a patchwork quilt.
Truth is, I just write people stories. Hate labels. The constants in my work have to do with styles and characters trying to come together and adrenaline rushes and poignant moments and shocking revelations and insights into the human condition. Things & events might wear the trappings of all those other labels, but the heart of my work is always how people deal with them.I’m lousy at promotion, indifferent to marketing ploys. But I know that CASE WHITE is a book for almost any reader. If you’d like to give me a shot, or you’ve asked where you can get it, here is the link to Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00O79GQTE . Other links are on my web site at http://thomassullivanauthor.com/index.html . Thanks for the interest, and yes, if you like CASE WHITE and post a review, it is very helpful. In fact, it is so easy to get lost in today’s marketplace that reviews are almost the only way for an author to avoid that fate.
This month’s photos below are as follows: #1-8 Summer/autumn hikes with trail friend Mickey on what we now call “6-swan days” (kinda the flip side of “3-dog nights” and note the wardrobe change with the weather shift from #7 to 8). #9 Bruce, Teri & Peter of Norby Nation (and I’m the “plus one”) hiking Crow-Hassan (yeah, I know it’s a failed quartet selfie – you have to put Peter’s brow on Bruce’s face); #10 Peter & Bruce overlooking St. Michael and the Crow River; #11 Bruce & Teri strolling in the golden cathedral of Crow-Hassan; #12 Peter & Sully rockclimbing (we thought we’d start out small…).
Full moon sailing across the heavens like a ghostly schooner as I write this. Next port of call Thanksgiving, but why wait? I’m thankful for all of you. Thankful for extreme health. Thankful for so many scintillating communications, for timeless raptures in natural settings, for beauty and poetry, for music and 100 full moons since learning what love is, for color and joy, for that magical combo of fresh energy and romantic poignancy… Wishing you discovery and courage and adventure. Happy Thanksgiving!
[PS:
a couple of you have noted technical difficulties in accessing my columns on
Storytellers Unplugged, and I appreciate the feedback. I believe it will be
fully accessible soon, but for the present there are some limitations. While
you always had to login to post comments, you now have to login just to see
them. Please don’t be discouraged if you only want to read the thread or decide
whether to weigh in, as I think the accessing will change. Those same technical
difficulties are preventing me from logging in to post a column this month. You
can still use the old links in your Sullygrams to see archived columns minus the
comments, but note that some of the links open at the end of the column and all
you may see is a blank page headed by a message that you have to login. It
fooled me too until I scrolled up and – presto – the column itself was still
there. Hope to be posting again next month and to have comment threads
available for viewing without having to login.]
Thomas "Sully" Sullivan
You can see all my books in any format here on my webpage or follow me on Facebook:
http://www.thomassullivanauthor.com
