I’m learning to love in November what I love and admire in most people I know.
Stripped of October’s candy corn color and uncorrupted by December’s frantic glitz, November offers only this: gratitude.
And that’s a lot.
November is the friend you walk with on mornings so cold your eyes water and your nose runs a little, so you wipe it with the paper towels you’ve stuffed in the pocket of an old sweatshirt you’re wearing because it was too dark in your bedroom to find anything more presentable and you know it doesn’t matter what you wear anyway.
November is the reader who recognizes but does not reproach the run-on sentence she quickly spots in the blog she kindly follows. (It’s also the reader who notices and quietly does point out, just to you, a glaring typo so you can fix it.)
November doesn’t aim to impress, just to offer space, fresh, clean air and a few spare moments to breathe it in. Unapologetically challenging, November draws out your best qualities (like cheerful resolve and all those times you raked leaves and convinced yourself you were having fun when there were about a million things you’d rather be doing) and ignores your whiny, weaker moments (like when you let go the pretense and complained to anyone who would listen that your hands hurt and you were pretty sure you were developing blisters on your thumbs).
November is the kind of month that waves October on in when the former owns the rights to pumpkin spice and the latter seizes the glory.
November is vanilla caramel tea thoroughly steeped; down quilts, flannel sheets and the time to enjoy them; warm parkas and cool mittens knit by a friend; mashed potatoes and pumpkin pie; the crisp outdoor smell of burning leaves and warm indoor smell of roasting turkey; turtleneck sweaters and corduroy jeans; fuzzy slippers and thick robes; big, noisy family dinners and quiet evenings by the fire.
When you think about November as one the best people you know, aren’t you glad you have another 24 days to enjoy?
I love the photo of the three trees, looking like they’re in three different seasons!
Thank you. I was a little cranky about the snow as I left the house but it turned out to be such a beautiful walk that I cheered up right away.
Before remembering, there is the experience itself, the latter captured in your (as usual) stunning photographs but delivered to the heart by the words, the writing. Last weekend I raked and blew from my yard, leaves. The autumn light at dawn and sunset; the music, the of dry leaves as you walk through them. Clay
The music of dry leaves is very distinctive and sometimes kind of haunting.
I love November! And your tribute to the month. Lovely photos.
Thank you! Shortly after I posted this we had a little snowstorm and I wondered if I had offended November in some way. 😉