It is the end of summer. The golden sun filters through clouds and reflects on a pond, a glimmering silver. Above me, Spanish moss hangs like a wizard’s beard from a giant oak stooping over me, centuries old. The green cathedral canopy against the blue sky has been an unfamiliar sight of late. I lean back comfortably in this deep wrought-iron chair, and realize that this is the first moment where I was not consumed in an investigation and writing a report.
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I imagine this is an experience akin to a prisoner completing a sentence and drinking in the outside world for the first time after captivity. I close my eyes and smile. The tension in my shoulders eases. Jefferson Island, where I’m relaxing, has somehow made it seem I’m a million miles away from everything, isolated in this little piece of serenity. It’s a welcome reward after the many hours of hard labor that I poured into addressing a customer’s issue.
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The Hunt for a Grey October
Donald A. Norman, in his Memory and Attention: An Introduction to Human Information Processing (John Wiley & Sons, Inc.) writes that the ancient greek and roman orators did not write their often long speeches but remembered them by "seeing" their speeches as walking inside a house, from one room - or topic - to another. In a recent column of mine a critical path was depicted: that is what should be done, according to my own experience as a report editor, to make a grey october into a cold and sunny, clear november.
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