Thanks for reading and commenting, Christer. Let me give you a little background on the contest first. In all the ZenGarden contests, we were given a picture of a flower and a related haiku as the prompt. The picture was one of gorgeous red tulips as far as the eye could see, an unforgettable photograph. So, I didn’t really choose the color red, it chose me. The picture seemed to me to imply an entire universe built from one color spectrum, one flower, so I took that as my theme. The four rooms of the house are my idea of a perfect life – Sleeping, Bathing, Eating, Learning. I had a wonderful time imagining each room with its Zen simplicity framing something red. It wasn’t Jung’s Red Book I imagined in the Learning room, but rather a book in which I could write my own characters and words. For some unknown reason, I imagined myself writing poems and brief vignettes in Chinese. In real life I don’t know any Chinese, but I do own Jung’s Red Book, one of my treasures. The dream was one I had many years ago. I’ll elaborate on that in my answer to Eric, since… Read more »

Hello Eric – thanks for reading and commenting. You can read my previous comment to Christer for a little background on the contest, the use of the color red, and the framework of the story.

Once I had written about the rooms of the house and the gardens with their immortal tulips thriving through all seasons, I remembered a dream I had about thirty or so years earlier. And yes, I actually had that exact dream with two differences. The original dream just had red flowers, not tulips per se. The second difference was at the end. When I begged the wise teacher not to land, he didn’t say “You always have a choice.” He said, in the original dream, “From above it all looks the same.” In my story I wanted to emphasize choice, so I took the liberty of changing my own dream. 🙂

Yes, this is a very personal story, which is unusual in my writing. Very few of my stories are autobiographical at all, but this one leans in that direction. How perceptive of you to guess that.

Thank you for the comment, Lotchie. How interesting that red is your family’s choice of color!

Thank you for reading and commenting, Katy and congratulations on your recent wins!

Hello Linda. Yes, the old ZenGarden contests were very special and a great source of inspiration, much like the recent Camellia contest we all entered before Christmas. I love the fact that red featured at so many important moments in your life – especially the rebellious red hair! As I said in previous comments, this story is one of the few of mine that are even remotely auto-biographical, and it’s very dear to me. So it means a lot that you feel a connection to it. Thank you so much.