Still home sick, perhaps a bit feverish, I'm looking out a rain-streaked back window through bare trees to the river. The opposite bank is a low, flat floodplain plastered with wet, russet leaves. It's a stage of sorts on which not much plays out besides the antics of crows and, once in a while, a visiting yellow lab. So I was startled to suddenly see come into view a woman carrying a big blue umbrella. She was dressed in a nondescript trench coat and appeared to have very long hair. There was nothing unusual about her, really, except that in my fanciful mind that's probably watched too many movies, I had this sudden wild thought that she was a visitor who had just materialized there, perhaps a ghost, perhaps someone from the past. An enigmatic figure, in any case. But as I'm pondering this cinematic moment in my head, wondering what will happen next, I notice the familiar yellow lab rambling through the woods nearby. Woman and dog eventually trudge back up the leaf-littered hill together and out of sight. Were they really there, or just a figment of my imagination?

Rainy day still shot:
woman with blue umbrella
ponders the river.