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When I step out onto my deck, I'm touched by wind. The highest clouds race east with the west wind's ocean fresh flow,
while the low clouds and the clean wind blows westward past my home from the high desert. The ground slopes southward down
into the gorge, a short stretch of garden quickly giving way to wild places dotted with young trees. At the bottom a forest
juts up into the sky, the highest branches of the doug firs are hundreds of feet up, almost level with the house. Red-tailed
hawks and vultures soar by day, great horned owls and bats by night. Goats brace onto thickets of blackberries and push them
down, eating voraciously.
 In summer the scent of roses, honeysuckle and bouncing bet is so intense I'm drunk with it. In autumn, giant sunflowers
lean precariously, laden by plumping seeds and hundreds of bees. Cosmos sway in the wind. Our grove of mature trees east
of the house shelter coolness in summer and harbor a birdbath with gargoyles and several birdfeeders. The grape arbor is
gloriously overgrown. Rhubarb spreads giant, dark green leaves. Zucchini and pumpkin run rampant. Baby fruit trees grow
just a little bit bigger each year, striving to become like the mature apple and pear trees that bend heavy with fruit in
late summer and blossom into pale puffs in spring. Wild roses grow into thick brambles. There's life
everywhere, and death. Coyotes cry with excitement at dusk, tearing at a hapless kill. Feral cats appear and vanish. Rodent
corpses litter the ground, inside the house and out. Treasured pets pass away from injuries or from old age. Butchering
time inevitably arrives. Disease takes its toll. There's a phone call from a relative--a precious life is taken from us
in an accident. A deer is hit by a car. We find a baby bunny while yanking up tansy ragweed, and he's just too dumb to hide
well enough to keep the cat from repeatedly finding him. A cougar takes a goat--but this time the goat lives because the
big cat panics when we come running outside with sidearms, flashlights and swords, only half-dressed. Sometimes there's a
reprieve, but inevitably, death comes in the end.
This is our world.
I write fantasy, but my world is real, and it bleeds onto the pages of my work. Sometimes it's happily ever after at the
end, but it costs, and the story that continues after The End of the novel can't be happy forever. If writing isn't about
life, and death, and pain, and joy, then what is writing about?
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