Too often a cruel month, this November has proven remarkably kind, with its almost-balmy weather for a number of days, and the way it’s largely offered sun and blue skies when history has carved out a legend of something dour and dreary. That’s been all well and wonderful, and it charges us into the last few weeks of autumn as if that sour season hasn’t really arrived. Would that we can sail through winter with as much grace.
November always wears me down, sometimes more than any other month, and despite 47 years of getting to know this, it still comes as a downtrodden surprise, dampening emotion and darkening my mental state. Just as the light drains from the day, so too does my happiness. I find myself sleeping more, caring less, and generally trying to bring agitation and annoyance to any given setting, as if by being prickly and difficult I can match the interior so the whole world knows such misery.
I never said I wasn’t still full of flaws and failures.
My daily meditations are of paramount importance now – coming at the crux of daylight and darkness – and if that ends up saving me, all the better. Walks outside are helpful as well, even if they are short and quick and just around our little yard. I forget that, and need to force myself out some days. Music helps too, if you can find the right song for the right moment. I don’t know if this is it.
November tires me out, like some personification of time itself – relentless, unwavering, and uncaring if you want to slow down or stop for a moment. It’s then that we must insist on it, or change our perception of it, so that we can simply allow it to flow around us while we pause in our own actions to recuperate or restore or reimagine.
