Welcome

The cloudy sky barely warms the bare earth of my Alaskan garden right now. The mountains behind the trellis are still covered with snow. The lawn is brown, and the trees have only the faintest haze of green in the distance.

Someone else might look around and think “barren.” I step outside and I see “potential.” Tiny seedlings will soon be poking up out of the ground, and eventually the brown soil won’t even be visible under all the green. The long, long hours of daylight will help create world record cabbages, peonies in July, and carrots so sweet the kids choose them over candy. People will look at my garden and pause, take a deep breath of perfumed air, perhaps ask me a question as I toil. And I will have joy - in the garden and in the visitor.

I write with the same intentions. The bare soil of the page before me will eventually be covered with a proliferation of words. Hopefully people will wander by, pause, and make a comment. There will be weeds. I will have to water it regularly. And sometimes a plant won’t thrive. But that’s okay. Just like a garden, the only way to know what will or won’t work is to try.

To plant a garden is to trust in tomorrow. To write a book is to strive for the future.