November

The space in-between (a re-post from last year at this time, and a reminder to do less).

Hello to a few new subscribers in the last week or so. I appreciate that you are here.

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I joke with my husband that he was born in the wrong hemisphere.

His dreams are tropical sunsets, swimming with turtles, sleeping on the sand, sea breezes and an island where he knows not a soul. He doesn’t like the cold and is prone to seasonal blues.

Unfortunately, he didn’t marry a Hawaiian princess when he had the chance but a Norwegian fairy who thrives on change.

I am deeply fond of the seasons — observing the shift in light, the difference in wind direction, the feeling each one brings. I need the slower observances of fall and winter after the growth and stimulation of spring and summer.

It is nearly full winter now and I am noticing again the particularity in November — the quiet and still; the inhale, the friend who takes a long minute to gather her thoughts before speaking, the introvert-month smashed between two extroverts.

November is the in-betweenness of the glory of October: its larch, triumphant reds, leaf piles and bursting pumpkins, harvest abundance calling attention —

And on November’s other arm chattering in her ear, is December: the nostalgia, the interior warmth, white drifts and sparkling lights, the joys (and sometimes stressors) of the Christmas season.

But just now in this particularity, before the snow moves in, there are larch needles underfoot on the dry ground before us, golden pathways to lead us in our cold explorations. We build fires, sitting on work gloves after falling a dry-standing tree. There is rarely wind, but a deep quiet that holds us as we laugh and place sticks on coals. Frost on leaves, apples in pockets, newspaper in backpacks, fingerless gloves.

Somewhere around us in the forest, chipmunks gather grasses under armpits and fold leaves in their paws, retrieve mushrooms from their trees now dried, and good for burrowing into crevices and corners. Bears are making up their beds with care, bowing and nosing into dens, checking on their stores one last time for deep winter sustenance, making a place within to hold their sweet molasses heads.

November is a consideration of the drawing in, the closing up, the cozying in — and for us as the animals, hibernation — finally, doing less.

And she is the loving friend who listens and doesn’t interrupt, the quiet presence who holds the space; Sabbath. ‘Please,’ says November, ‘just stop — you are more than what you can produce, more than what you can contribute.’ I am enough, in my existence alone.

I’ve been waking up earlier the last few days after the time change — watching November come into the day from our living room. I sit on the floor with just our white lights and face our window like an altar and notice the light. As our daily revolution starts again — I ask, “What can I do less of today?”