There is one thing that I really don’t like about fall…it is an announcement that winter is coming. However, the one thing that I do look forward to are the colors of fall foliage.

Right across from my office window is a “burning bush” bush. As I write this, it is bright red. I don’t mean a little bit red or a faded red…, but a really fiery red! It almost looks as though someone with a spray gun came along and painted it red.

Most colors in the fall are a bit more muted…but some maple trees can also make you think of the burning bush…a bright and pure red.

On another recent autumn day, it was gray and had been raining most of the day…but then the rain stopped, and the sun came out.

It was late in the afternoon and the sun’s rays were very angled, oblique, almost parallel to the landscape. When the sun is like this, it can light up the leaves of fall dramatically. My wife looked across the lake at the brilliance of it all with the trees in the distance lighted up against the black sky of a receding raincloud and said: “I have to take a picture of this.”

She is good with her cell phone and went out on the porch and snapped the picture. Soon it went out, “viral,” as they say, to our family over the family chat, internet, “cloud,” or whatever you want to call it… and in seconds the phone was soon buzzing back with “isn’t it beautiful,” “wish I were there,” etc. etc. accompanied by what the new generation calls “emojis,” things like smiling faces or “thumbs up” to show appreciation.

On such a day, you forget about the days when a blizzard can be whipping down this frozen lake, when you can’t even see across to the other side.

This description may not be apt, but fall colors remind me a lot of the paintings of impressionists. The artists of this genre were exceptionally gifted at displaying the effects of light on a landscape. I think that my wife’s photo that day, if painted by such an artist, would probably end up in an art gallery someplace.

Okay, I may be getting a little teary-eyed about it all. I may even be getting out of my league. Often the things that I write about are related to the human landscape and the controversies which surround us…not about views from our front window.

But, once in a while, I think it is okay to just sit back, relax and take what mother nature gives you on the plus side.

There is a country song that speculates that if cowboys can’t get into heaven, then “take me to Texas, ’cause Texas is as close as I’ve been.” I would take issue with that.

Think about a fall day with the sun shining down on the myriad colors of the trees lining Chautauqua Lake. It may not be heaven, but until you get there, this may be “as close as you’ve been.”

Rolland Kidder is a Stow resident.