Title: Untitled

I was a child when I first understood that some things do not fully close. My father died, and something in me has carried an undertow ever since; not one dark night but a season that returns. This is not a painting about being broken. It is a painting about weather. Autumn exists because summer had to end somewhere, and autumn is not a failure of the tree; it is the tree's honest accounting of what it can hold through winter. I am standing in my garden, reaching toward the branch above me, surrounded by leaves that are dying loudly and beautifully. Falera, my crow of ten years, has come close enough to study me; she is deciding, on her own terms, whether I am safe. I understand her caution completely, because I have spent my whole life doing the same evaluation. This is a work in progress. So is she. So is everyone worth trusting.