Gaze outside. What do you see? Here’s what I see outside my window. This is a short essay based on a writing prompt. Writing prompts are great for spurring inspiration.
Outside my window, the golden leaves are falling, blanketing the grass. The rays of sun light are streaming through the branches where so many more leaves still wait to fall. This is the ritual of autumn, as nature shuts down for winter and goes dormant.
But as nature quiets, the roar of challenge and change rages around us, a country in upheaval. We’re days from the election, days from a reckoning with who this nation wants to be. And it seems, no matter the results, the country won’t go dormant. Will we find peace and balance again?
The brick red shed sits surrounded by golden leaves. They blanket the ground in front of it and hang from the branches above it. It’s resolute, always there, always present. It won’t go dormant; it doesn’t live. Not will it roar with the challenge and change of the world around it. It just is.
But we are not — unless we choose to be. Do we want to be seasonal like the trees, shining bright before going dormant when the weather is unfavorable? Do we want to be like the shed, resolute and unwavering? Or are we something else … living, breathing, feeling, experiencing human beings who cannot shape our world if we don’t remain active in it?
What is it that you want to be?
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