Waiting for Autumn Read Online Free Page A

provide you with all the energy you need if you just slow down and let it help you. The moon, the sun, and everything else in nature has been provided by the universe to help us with our earthly needs. Unfortunately, over the past few hundred years, humans have been taught to ignore nature instead of turning to it for help—which is probably at the root of the reason the environment is in the shape it’s in.”
    I didn’t like to think about environmental issues at all because they were so depressing. And they seemed too big for me to do anything about.
    Robert continued and seemed to address my concerns: “Not everyone has to be an activist to make a difference. Just doing what we did tonight can make a huge impact by our becoming part of the cycle of nature and reclaiming what has been ignored. Nature is a living, breathing thing, which is no different from you or me. When we feel loved, we have more energy to heal ourselves when sick. And when we’re feeling ignored or unloved, we find it harder to recover from whatever ails us. By celebrating nature’s cycles, we show it our love and it can begin to heal itself. It’s not the only thing that needs to be done, but it’s something we can all do as part of our everyday lives. And with the power of billions of souls on this planet, a massive healing can be done in a relatively short time.”
    I wasn’t convinced that we could solve all the world’s problems by simply celebrating nature’s cycles. But I could definitely feel the energy of the moon inside me and thought that if it made me feel that good, I could probably make another living thing feel good if I tried. I filed that under “It couldn’t hurt” and vowed to spend a couple minutes every day sending the planet good wishes.
    By then we had found our way down the hill and were approaching the town center.
    “See you later,” Robert said once we reached the bottom of the hill.
    “When?” I asked, and instantly felt selfconscious about appearing needy.
    “When the moment is right. We now have a connection that doesn’t need to rely on archaic measurements of time. When the universe wants us to meet, then we’ll meet.”
    Robert waved goodbye and headed out of town while I walked in the opposite direction toward my apartment. My thoughts were swimming with everything that had happened that day, and I was completely exhausted when I finally arrived at my front door. After climbing into bed and letting myself sink into the silence around me, I was able to feel the moon energy even more so than I had outside. It was still bubbling in the pit of my stomach, and with a smile on my lips, I quickly drifted off to sleep.

CHAPTER THREE
    I woke up throughout the night and wasn’t able to sleep well because of my recurring nightmare. Several years prior, I had been engaged to a girl named Cheryl, and we were to marry in the spring. We’d originally met in high school but didn’t begin dating until we left and found ourselves living in the nearby town of Yreka. After rediscovering each other, we had an instant connection, and I always felt lucky to have found true love at such an early age.
    Cheryl was short with curly black hair, and had a knack for the culinary arts and making me laugh. After graduating from high school, she immediately found a job as a sous-chef in a popular restaurant that was favored by the tourists in a nearby town. She became quite successful in a short amount of time and began moonlighting at night to get her own catering business off the ground. On occasion I helped her with the bookkeeping and serving clients during events, and it was our dream to eventually work together full-time once the business could support us.
    One of the most prestigious catering jobs we landed was a lawyers’ convention at a mountain retreat. It was easily the biggest event we had ever catered, and it was going to give us enough money so that Cheryl could quit her day job and work on the catering business