What will your life be like in three years?
Well now, that depends on several things. I love the fall. Who doesn’t love the fall in New Brunswick? The trees changing color, warm by day and cool at night, then the leaves falling off the trees and blowing here and there with the wind. I stood in the garage yesterday and listened as the north wind herded rustling, complaining Maple leaves down the roadway past my house. The sound of dry leaves bouncing and skittering. Pure fall magic.

But when I fell on Thursday night, it was a different kind of fall. One moment I was a tree, standing free on my own two feet, the next I was a sawn-off log, tumbled to the ground. When trees fall, they often bleed bark or sawdust, if they are sawed. I just bled blood. On the floor boards, on the carpet, on my shirt. I had just painted the painting above – Prelapsarian – and there I was, lying on the floor, having fallen myself.

And there I lay, fulfilling my own prophecy – Postlapsarian – lying bleeding on the ground. The fall was stunning and I was stunned. I managed first to roll over onto my tummy. Next I managed to get into the push-up position and from there I was able to draw my knees up. Kneeling, I reached out to the spare bed and started to try and haul myself to my feet. But I was spent and exhausted and drained.

I called out and Clare, dear woman, came to my rescue. She helped me to my feet, staunched the bleeding, mopped up the floor, and the carpets, and me. Then she went to the medical chest and bandaged me up so I would heal and wouldn’t bleed all over the bed and my pajamas. What a mess. What a bloody mess – and no, I am not swearing, I am only telling you what I saw. Blood everywhere.

So, what will my life be like in three years? I hesitate to think about it. Maybe I’ll be in a garden somewhere, helping the trees to grow their leaves, so that the life cycle may continue. And maybe not. Right now, I feel very, very fragile. I just don’t want to think beyond the current moment.