Say yes to all that life is offering.

On my way out of Knox County this evening, driving through the soft aftermath of the sun's setting, I realized that I'm not just starting to imagine myself wearing birds' colors. I'm imagining myself in the shades of winter dusk, as well: the deep, abiding roses, the yellows of soft sustenance, the deepening blues fringed in black branch. And suddenly it hit me, so strangely, like someone pulling a realization around my shoulders and up over my brow, right there on OH-661: my palette just changed, softened, quieted. Why this should feel startling, coming at the end of a year that has shifted so much of my mental landscape--but in an almost subtle way, as though someone sneaked into my house while I was sleeping and turned the sofa to face out the window and finally put all my books in some kind of order--I'm not sure. But my delight in that deepening sky, and at the mercurial behavior of barns in its late glow, kept me thinking for the rest of the dark drive, while Gillian Welch sang, again and again, "Oh, me oh my oh, look at Miss Ohio..."

(Tonight's title comes from my day's horoscope. Usually I just laugh at my horoscopes, because they tend to be diametrically opposed to everything going on in my life--much like the strange weather reports earlier this week that told me it was 60 and sunny outside, when it was actually 43 and raining. But today's is one of the offerings to which I'll say yes.)