The Yellow Light of November
"The thinnest yellow light of November is more warming and exhilarating than any wine they tell of. The mite which November contributes becomes equal in value to the bounty of July." — Henry David Thoreau
This rambling blog post is my love letter to November. I love the yellow hues of November. The “thin yellow light” Thoreau praises is only seen in spring and then again in fall, especially in November. There is a certain slant of light and moodiness of the sky that only comes in those two seasons. And when it comes in November, it turns the treetops golden against the blue-gray sky.
Welcoming early November is a celebration for me. I have actually declared it my favorite month, and I am quite sure from the looks I get that I don’t have a lot of confederates. It’s neither flashy nor full of the bucket-list pressures of October. I confess to feeling a bit manic in early fall. This is me: Cider donuts at the farmstand, come on let’s go while they are still warm! We need mums for the front walkway! Let’s get our pumpkin! Get in the car for a foliage ride! Let’s get pictures of all this color while the light is good! Fall picnic! It’s both exhilarating and exhausting.
Enter late fall…and the Zen Master, November. The ostentatious hoopla of “everybody’s favorite season” in Vermont has calmed down, if not disappeared. The leaves have taken on their yellow hue, many already having turned an earthy brown. There is less of the sun that lit up the oranges and reds, and the clouds of the contemplative month roll in. November’s quiet arrival heralds a month of potential stillness. November’s gray morning skies and golden sunsets offer us days to breathe, to be thoughtful and thankful. It’s a month of space. The space between the first of November and Thanksgiving is just right for long solitary walks, quiet reflection, curling up with a mug of warm tea and a book, resting, and just being. November is my psalm, and I praise its arrival.
“God bless our perfect, perfect grey day
With trees so bare, so bare
But oh so beautiful, so beautiful
The grey, blue sky, the world is here”
By mid-to-late November, you can begin to feel the transitional phase of the month. Punctuated by early, sparse flurries, gray skies, the last of the geese, bare tree limbs, carpets of wet leaves slippery and glistening with rain and melted snow, and of course, Thanksgiving, there is a quiet beauty that I love to savor. It begins to sink in that another year is almost at its end as thoughts of Christmas nudge their way into each day as the month moves on. So the end of the month becomes filled with anticipation, but there will be plenty of time for rushing around for the holidays in December. November, I will remind myself, is for paying attention.
I recently read a book that for me was meant to be read in November, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Sarah B talked about it on her podcast Time and Other Thieves (I listen on Spotify). It’s a painfully beautiful book by Jean-Dominque Bauby, the former editor of the French Elle Magazine. He suffered a massive stroke which left him alive, but with the rare “locked in syndrome.” I won’t go into a full review or any spoilers, but if you haven’t read it, put it on your list. It is the perfect book for a November afternoon. One of the things he comments on is “the small events that punctuate the passage of time: roses picked at dusk, the laziness of a rainy Sunday, a child crying himself to sleep. Capturing the moment, these small slices of life, these small gusts of happiness, move me more deeply than all the rest.” These small events (capturing the moment, small slices of life, small gusts of happiness) are what I slow down and give my attention to in November.
My love affair with the month of November is indeed “punctuated by the small events” that capture my attention and mark the passage of its days. Those small events began as far back as elementary school and have become such special November memories. From great leaf piles of once flaming color, my friend Brenda and I kicked and shuffled the yellow and brown decaying foliage into neat rows in anyone’s front yard on the way home from school. On Veteran’s Day, which was a day off from school, we would run to the local park, jumping through more massive piles of crunchy leaves on our way to Ann’s Bake Shop for a candy apple. Then, wearing our red poppies, we were off to the local American Legion for a free bean and hot dog dinner with local elderly veterans. The waning sun, the smell of snow flurries, and damp socks inside wet shoes signaled it was time for us to rush home before the early darkness of the time change. Then there were the November preparations for Thanksgiving. My job as a child was to make sure the bread crusts were set out to dry in the oven for my mother’s Thanksgiving stuffing. And Thanksgiving, of course, was the crown jewel of the month, rivaled only by Stir-It-Up Sunday, a tradition of my mother’s Anglican, English family. Right after Thanksgiving, my mother and aunt would make our Christmas pudding, with future-vegetarian-me consigned to grind the suet. They each had a “drop of port” when the work was done. This tradition continued until we moved to another house. Through middle school and high school I spent our Veteran’s Day of no school downtown with friends, watching the parade, eating those candy apples (does anyone take more than two bites of a candy apple?), and loving the November day, rain or shine. Then later, in high school, my friend Paula and I discovered Fleetwood Mac’s Bare Trees album. And there it was (and still is)…my soundtrack of November.
November calls on me to pay attention, to be present. It coaxes me to gently plan, create, contemplate, rest, and reflect on how much I have to be grateful for. Although November may signal an end of something to most people, for me it’s the beginning of a contemplative season. Book in hand, I will make my slipper-clad way to the couch and make a toast to the month with my steaming mug of chai latte, then lose myself in thought, gazing out the window at a sliver of yellow light against a moody blue-gray sky.
“November is a bare branch caught in just the right amount of yellow moonlight, moving back and forth in the nighttime wind, holding steadfast to its few remaining leaves, not quite ready to let go of The Precious Days.”
What about you? Are you a November lover or do you have other feelings about the month? Let me know in the Comments.
