As I walked down my driveway this afternoon, I just happened to turn around and look up at the sky — for no reason, you understand; there was no noise or sudden movement — and I saw the low winter sun light up the sugar maple across the street like fireworks, and just as swift.  The leaves sparked up yellow as bright as any spring buttercup, and then the gray clouds moved and the leaves were just yellow leaves on a tree with more bare branches than leafed ones.

It was heartbreaking, the way your heart breaks when you spend the day with an dear friend you haven’t seen in a while, and it’s so exciting at first and the words just rush on and on there’s so much to say and catch up on, and then there is that moment after a while when the conversation lags and you’ve said everything you can think of to say and you realize that however much you love your friend, she is not part of your life anymore, at least not the quotidian part, the part about the children and the annoying guy on your daily commute and your new fuschia sweater.  So you struggle on, dredging up dumb and pointless things to talk about, until it’s time to part.  And then you realize that there is still so much important stuff left to say, and that you will leave it unsaid.

It is November, after all.