My mother picked up a tattered paperback copy of Little House in the Big Woods at a garage sale when I was 5 or 6 years old. During the evenings before bed, my mom, and on some occasions, my dad, would read chapter after chapter to my little sister, brother, and me. The tales of Ma, Laura, Carrie…

Today the sky is grey and a sharp wind is rustling the leaves. The light sifting through the clouds has a poignant clarity that only arrives with fall weather — as though now, at the end of summer and all that is green, the world presents its true self — naked from the filter of…