Come Autumn

Tomorrow I head up to the lake for a few days of intensive writing on THE ARCHANGEL PROJECT. I love being up there. Steve and I went up last Friday night. It was so cold when we got in at about 8 pm that I thought, No more sitting in the porch swing looking at the lake! But once the sun came up the next morning, it warmed up enough that we were able to eat breakfast outside. There are some deciduous trees around the lake that have turned brilliant shades of yellow and red—something we don’t see here in New Orleans—so that was an unexpected, additional treat.

Our lake house is about three miles outside a little community called Clinton, Louisiana. It’s a very old town, with many ante bellum houses and a lovely old columned courthouse with what they call “lawyers’ row” (a block of old nineteenth-century law offices) across the street. The first Saturday of every month they have a Community Market, where they set up produce and craft booths up and down Main Street and around the courthouse green. We spent a lovely morning strolling around town, looking at the booths, then went back to the house and devoted the afternoon to painting (having finished the large pantry, we’ve now moved on to the master bedroom closet and the adjoining bath). We got back to New Orleans late Saturday night, tired yet immensely refreshed. Now, I’m looking forward to spending the rest of the week up there. And I’m not allowed to take any painting clothes with me, so that all I can do is write.