October 14 2025
Dear All,
The season is changing here in Key West, with days of autumn rain and a drop in temperature at last. People say that we don’t have seasons here, but it’s not true; you feel the change in the sound of rain on leaves, a tiny breath of air on skin, the shape of clouds, the color of the ocean, darkness at morning and evening, and the sweep and brilliance of sunsets. Living here makes you aware, not of a dramatic change but a subtle one, a shift of emphasis, a taste of newness.
With the fall here, so close to the equator that sometimes even the trees get confused about when to flower, my thoughts turn to spring in Provence and our Coming To Our Senses retreat in Arles, next May. Some of you will have received news of it already, and several people have signed up, so I’m delighted to think that we will be there from May 16 to 23, in the city to which Van Gogh came to live the last years of his life. Light matters to painters; it mattered especially to the Impressionists and those who painted out of doors, en plein air, like Cézanne and Van Gogh. Artists have always gathered where the light is. For Van Gogh, it was transformative; you only have to look at his early paintings of gleaners and potato pickers on winter days in the Netherlands and then his paintings in the South of France to see that.
Light is also what draws people to Key West. Elizabeth Bishop wrote to Robert Lowell, “When somebody says ‘beautiful’ about Key West, you really should take it with a grain of salt... the ‘beauty’ is just the light, or something equally perverse.” Perverse or not, the effects of the light remain.
Leonard Cohen sang, “There’s a crack, a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.” We crave the light, and we know it comes and goes. Primitive peoples waited in tension through the winter to see if the light would return. When you arrive in Provence, the light seems to crack you open a little bit; when you arrive in Key West, especially in winter, the clarity of the light gives us the deep blue of the sky, the brilliance of flowers, the color of the water.
And I notice, belatedly, that I write about it all the time. (Light Over Islands, Indigo Sky at Noon.) It’s probably why I came to live here.
The information about the Arles retreat went out to many of you a day or two ago, with instructions about how to sign up and join us if the spirit moves you, so I won’t repeat it all here. But here is our website, with all the details about us, about the place, about the event: www.comingtooursensesretreat.com
I do hope some of you will be able to join us and experience, as well as the early summer light of Provence, the joy of listening to birdsong, celebrating our senses, writing what we see, hear, and feel.
Affectionately,
Ros
P.S. My 50-year-old collection of short stories No Such Thing As A Free Lunch is now available from Michael Walmer, Sandness Press, Little Pradies, 13a Melby, Sandness, Shetland ZE2 9PL; through UK bookshops, Ingram in the US, and Amazon, reprinted with an introduction by the novelist A.L. Kennedy.
