I am in Santa Fe, New Mexico and am peering outside at barren aspen trees with piles of golden leaves at their bases.  To the right are purple plum trees with the occasional stubborn brown leaf still clinging to the branch.  To the left is a climbing rose vine that has reached our variegated brown tile roof and is hanging on for dear life.  For some reason unknown to me, it is a dusty green, still alive, although its days are surely numbered.  Many of the birds have fled south for the winter, yet the animals remain.  A gray fox crept across Camino La Tierra the day before last, its eyes shining in our headlights.  Mangy coyotes howl in the moonlight and send chills up my spine as they encircle their prey.  Green and brown striped lizards have gone underground, yet I know they are still around, biding time until warmer days come again.  The smell of pinon wood burning in fireplaces mingles with fresh cool breezes and floods my senses with delight.
    It is these late fall days and evenings that make us face the fact that winter will be soon upon us. There are arm loads of wood to be brought in for the fireplace.   For my sister in Wisconsin, there will be mountains of snow to shovel and plow.  There is gingerbread and rum cake to be made and shared.  A Christmas tree will choose us and we'll fill its branches to the top with decorations, each invoking a special memory of a holiday gone by.   The years pass faster, somehow, than they did when I was a child.  A year seems to equal a month.  A day fades within a couple of hours.  Thanksgiving is nearly upon us, and quick upon its heels is Christmas.  
    I am grateful for so much—a kind and loving husband, four children and going on eight grandchildren, each perfect in his or her own way. I think about the family members who've gone on ahead during the late fall and early winter—my father, his mother and father, and my mother's mother just this past Thanksgiving.  My life has been made far richer for having known them.  It is a good time to honor their memories and reflect upon how very blessed I have been.
    Whenever I take the time to be grateful, it seems as if more abundance shows up in delightful ways.  A friendly word is spoken by a fellow shopper in Albertsons'.  A driver beckons me to move in line ahead of him.  Words flow onto a blank page as if written by an unseen hand, making me only the writing instrument, not the creator.  Someone drops a casserole by my home for no apparent reason, except that it is a gift.  A surprise hug from a friend or a telephone call makes me aware that someone is thinking of me.
    Winter will soon pass away and spring will be born.  A wren will once again inhabit her nest outside our window in Austin.  I will watch her babies hatch and look forward to the arrival of our eighth grandchild, a girl in April.  We will be rejuvenated by that season of rebirth, by the appearance of new generations where old ones have vanished.  There is so much to look forward to, so much to celebrate during each season.