There’s one thing I really don’t like about fall… it’s the announcement that winter is coming. However, the one thing I’m looking forward to is the colors of the fall foliage.

Right in front of my office window is a “burning bush” bush. As I write this, it is bright red. I’m not talking about a slightly red or a washed-out red…, but a really fiery red! It almost looks like someone with a spray gun came and painted it red.

Most fall colors are a little more muted…but some maples can also be reminiscent of burning bush…a bright, pure red.

On another recent fall day, it was gray and had rained 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 inclined, oblique, almost parallel to the landscape. When the sun is like this, it can dramatically light up the fall leaves. My wife looked across the lake at the glare of it all with the distant trees lit against the black sky of a receding rain cloud and said: “I have to take a picture of this.”

She is good at using her cell phone and went out onto the porch and took the photo. Soon it faded away, “viral,” as they say, to our family via family chat, Internet, “cloud,” or whatever you want to call it… and within seconds the phone was quickly answered with "Isn’t it beautiful," “I would have liked to have been there” etc. etc. accompanied by what the new generation calls “emoticons” things like smiley faces or “boost” to show appreciation.

On such a day, you forget the days when a snowstorm can hit this frozen lake, where you can’t even see to the other side.

This description may not be appropriate, but the fall colors remind me a lot of the paintings of the impressionists. Artists of this genre were exceptionally gifted at reproducing the effects of light on a landscape. I think the picture of my wife that day, if painted by such an artist, would probably end up in an art gallery somewhere.

Okay, maybe I’m getting a little teary-eyed about all of this. I might even get out of my league. Often the things I write about relate to the human landscape and controversies around us…not the views from our window.

But, every once in a while, I think there’s nothing wrong with sitting back, relaxing, and taking what Mother Nature gives you on the positive side.

There’s a country song that speculates that if cowboys can’t go to heaven, then “take me to Texas, because Texas is as close as I get.” I don’t agree with this.

Think of a fall day with the sun shining on the myriad colors of the trees lining Chautauqua Lake. It may not be heaven, but until you get there, it could be “as close as you got.”

Rolland Kidder is a resident of Stow.