In truth, Novembers tend to be sleepier than October for me. The cold has settled in like thick glaze on the brown pastry of the Earth. Trees unfurl scarlet banners and line the roads, cheering as you drive by. Other trees are naked and have strewn their gold and beige garments across the ground. Even the grass has put up its shutters and is turning in for the winter.
I love autumn dearly, and each December I am not prepared to let it go. But this year I’ve had a swell autumn. I’ve enjoyed the season so thoroughly, in fact, that I’m ready to usher in winter. But not before I experience November.
Write, and enjoy it.
November 1. I am by no means a novel writer or even a fiction writer of any kind, so November being National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) has never meant a great deal to me. But this year I’m participating in my first NaNoWriMo with my best friend.
True to my Gothic roots, I am finishing up a previously started novella about vampires, haunted manors, and grisly murders. Baby steps, I tell myself. If I’m going to force creative output, at least let me make it somewhat enjoyable.
I extend this recommendation to everyone. After all, inspiration isn’t tame. She arrives silently, in the early hours of the morning, like a wild doe cautiously approaching your window. If you aren’t quick enough, she will bound away, and it may be months before she revisits you.
Creatives aren’t meant for the 9-to-5 grind. It is against the way our bodies and minds function. But our society is built on the cumbersome unbendingness of the American workday. In our work-obsessed and arts-indifferent culture, we cannot escape this reality. Not for now. So, artist, be kind to your body and mind this November. Write or paint or sing what you enjoy.
Month of Truces
November 11. Veterans Day is in November, which I’ve just registered in my mind this year. Of course I knew Veterans Day existed, but I never knew the month off the top of my head.
This is because my entire life I’ve called it Armistice Day—the day World War I officially ended. Turns out no one calls it Armistice Day anymore, not even the Commonwealth. But, as the daughter of a historian, I will stubbornly continue. November 11 will always be Armistice Day.
This year a friend of mine will be married on Armistice Day . . . in Virginia. As her makeup artist, I must attend. The drive will be eight hours in the backseat of a packed car. Basically, modern trench warfare. Carsickness and boredom will attack me. Grumpiness and sleepiness will weaken my defenses.
But, in true Armistice Day spirit, I know the solution to my apprehension is a truce. What better way to commemorate the day? I make a truce with the long car ride. I make a truce with the moods of my fellow passengers, with all topics of conversation, however dull. I make a truce with the backseat and with nausea.
Most of all I make a truce with participation in another wedding—exhaustion of exhaustions—because I love my friend, and this is her day.
And besides, it is November, and the trees will be aflame. I get to watch them spark and kindle and blaze the entire way to Virginia. My best friend will be at the wedding, on break from her Marine training, and we get to celebrate her birthday. On our drive back home, we are taking the Parkway, and I will get to see the fog curl like a cat upon the fiery quilt of the Blue Ridge Mountains. What gifts!
I am making my own truce on Armistice Day. This November, I choose gratitude.
How to Be Grateful
November 23. Thanksgiving is the biggest holiday in November (at least, for Americans). One thing I adore about Thanksgiving is it’s one of the least commercialized holidays. Stores don’t fill shelves with Thanksgiving merchandise—it’s all labeled “autumn” or grouped with Halloween, so everything disappears the last week of October.
In November, gratitude can grow and mature, much like trust or faith. It can arrive in our lives like a long-awaited friend coming to visit. You don’t have to indulge in consumerism to celebrate Thanksgiving. You can just be thankful. You can drink in the company of the people you love and simply dwell.
But decor and traditions certainly help. I’m revamping my dining room and living room for Thanksgiving by recycling my Halloween pumpkins and other fall decor into centerpieces and counter accents. The skeletons and ghosts, though I desperately want to leave them out, are retired for the year. Instead I’m putting out gold taper candles and vases and placemats in deep reds and greens. These will usher in Christmas.
The Trouble with Christmas
November 24. Decorating for Christmas before Thanksgiving is an abomination. After all, Americans ought to afford Thanksgiving the time and respect it deserves. Gratitude is not a trite emotion to be discussed, but a sincere inward conviction to be shown. Being grateful means not only experiencing a fleeting appreciation, but participating willingly in the last of the fall festivities.
Thus, I am a strict December-first Christmas decorator. But this year I’m finding my heart is a tad kinder toward Christmas, which is a relief from the cynicism and dread I’ve had the past few years.
I rarely decorate for Christmas, but this year I’ve purchased retro-inspired ornaments and garlands. I’m going to have my little cousins over to help me decorate on Black Friday, something I have never done before.
I hardly recognize myself. I’m not fully comfortable with the fact that I am thrilled for Christmas. But it’s a discomfort that pushes me toward delight. The change is rooted—miraculously, unexpectedly—in growth. Growth is often uncomfortable and painful, but it’s also needed, and good.
This November, growth begins with gratitude. I’m not budging on my no-Christmas-before-Thanksgiving rule. But I’m letting joy arrive as she does—slowly, spurred on by thankfulness. Initiated by November.
God knew exactly what He was doing when He gave us this month.