Tag: November

Novembers Blues and Joys

Describing a Blue Sky

It’s hard to not fall in love with rain-washed November mornings in California. I remember once as a child being asked to describe a sky of indescribable beauty and getting frustrated. The sky was blue. But it was a blue that was not just a color, it made you feel happy! What was the color of that blue?

I felt that way this morning too.

The blue made me feel the opposite of blue. No one who has experienced this blue would attribute sadness to ‘feeling blue’. So what gives? When language is not enough, maybe the fluttering of the golden thrush is enough. For that’s how it feels – to swoop and dance through the air.

The leaves are beautiful, star-shaped, hues of green, yellow, orange, red and maroon with little sunbursts through their leaves sparkling and shining to uplift your day. Peering through that riot of color to the blue sky – how does one describe that?

Prized Priceless

That’s when I noticed the helicopter flying low, and I peered up at it, and feeling like a toddler asked to point at the helicopter in the sky, waved at it. Of course, it was at that very moment that our empty suburban streets produced neighbors walking on the streets. I smiled sheepishly at them, and said, “A day that makes you want to wave at helicopters isn’t it?”

They exchanged a swift, almost imperceptible look of concern, and then being the kind folks they are, arranged their features to polite interest, and said, “I think there is a police chase going on. We saw several police cars earlier today.”

Oh.

If people ask me at the beginning of the day how I plan to make a prized fool of myself, I am not sure I could tell you. These things are not planned. There is an innate talent to these things.

I didn’t know what to say to that. I goggled a bit at them, and felt my cheeks brightening to match the color of the maroon leaves through which the sunbursts looked splendid.

“So! Have you seen what they are planning to do for the park?”

Adulting in November

I recovered and walked home, though, the nincompoop before this little social chat might’ve skipped home. Really! Sometimes being an adult can be very restrictive. I thought of Anne of Green Gables – I felt for this girl so much just then.

“Tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it… yet.”

― L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables

Just before I closed the door though, a beautiful butterfly and am engaging hummingbird seemed to understand what I was feeling as they flitted around the flower patch, and the trees nearby.

I watched them go, and then grateful that I got to step out at all, headed inside.

Feeling blue? Take a walk and wave at passing helicopters will you? The November world around us works like a charm.

Weather Warnings

I peered out into the window wishing and hoping, and skipping, and sighing for the past week for one of the scariest storms of California to materialize. Really! The media when bored can really get going. The storm may be wreaking havoc in the mountains up in the mountains of Northern California, but here in the Bay Area, there was no need to send people scuttling in with flash flood warnings, gale-like wind warnings, or any warnings at all for that matter. 

It turned out to be a beautiful set of days – a bit wind-blown, but not too cold. I set out on walks with gusto hoping to brave the gusts of winds. There were no gusts or gales. Just winds. All perfectly normal.

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Atmospheric rivers indeed – I watched the sad trickle of water in the stream that masqueraded as a river next to our home, and sighed a bit. 

Even as I write this piece, I understand the true luxury of walking-weather in late November. It was amazing to see how the birds took flight and staggered a little as they got used to the thrusts of the wind. I must say watching pelicans change flight in windy weather is a marvel. Geese – so perfectly blase and arrogant in their daily demeanors, looked a little comical as they squawked to each other and determined direction for their little flocks. 

One day, I took refuge in a copse of trees and listened to the winds howling just around them. Trees provide such marvelous wind barriers, and I felt a strange sense of being protected in the little clearing amidst them. 

I took my cup of coffee out at mid-day, and found the first few fat droplets of water descend. They sprinkled about a bit, and then decided that it wasn’t worth the effort. 

It was just another November Day – with a promise of rains, winds : heavy and gusty.

P.S: The rains have just started: I sat cradling my cup of tea: hesitant at first and then a little more insistent. Time to start dancing in the rain!

November Gifts

When the colder regions of the United States start rejoicing in the beautiful colors of Fall in October, California is still reeling with hot summers’ last gasp. Wildfires, and heat waves sound alarms of summer fading out. We are almost there, we pant to each other, as the withered flowers cling to their stems, and dust settles adamantly on cars and rooftops. Parched rivers, dried up lakes and dusty trails with wildfire warnings are the norm. Then suddenly, as though, there is a secret message that Halloweens cannot be during a hot spree, the days become nippier in the evening.

Elsewhere in the colder regions of the United States, it is the Octobers that are splendid, but for us here in the Bay area in California, November is the month of brilliant fall colors. A splendid sight that I had not fully seen in my initial years – in the unseeing way in which I rushed from one spot to another, in the unending rush to and from my job. Post the autumnal equinox, the sunsets became a rarity as it would be dark by the time I left the office and got out of the train. But over the years, I have noticed the colors with more appreciation every passing year. 

This year,  as I set out on walks on clear November days, I feel the gratitude for a less rushed commute and I sometimes get the feeling that all of this wells up within me to burst forth into the myriad colors in the universe I see around me. As I stood last week, first under an oak tree, then a sycamore tree, and then a large maple tree, a gingko tree and a willow tree (it’s hard to stop once you start!), I felt a sense of liberation in the air. The leaves were maturing, and some of them were letting go of their own volition.  (A lesson the occupant of the highest office in the nation can learn from if only he took the time to stand under a tree.) 

I stood there for a few minutes without rushing about my walk, and quietly reluctantly, when I moved away, I reflected on the gifts:

🍁 The music 🎶 🎵 🎼 of the wind rustling through the trees, to the accompaniment of chirping birds, and tittering squirrels, is music enough, and a soft lesson of symphony.

🍁 Watching a yellow, orange and red world bathed in the November light with the leaves fluttering down at their own pace is an unhurried lesson in pace.

🍁 Every now and then, a blue jay flies down from its perch, a couple of little yellow thrushes swoop in joy, while the melodious blackbirds and the nimble hummingbird go about their day. I can rejoice in the glorious feeling of the heart soaring with the birds. A lesson of hope and joy.

🍁  I see the younger gingko trees in our neighborhood already brilliantly yellow, but gingko trees apparently wait and coordinate among themselves to shed their leaves in unison. The older gingko tree isn’t quite there yet. It is working its way through the green leaves and slowly turning to yellow. The splendid yellow young ones are waiting patiently. A lesson in gracious patience.

🍁 How could I forget the squirrels with their final nut collection drive? A lesson of work while stopping to enjoy the fruits of one’s labor.

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November is also the month of celebrations. Hot on the heels of Halloween when the adults find the child in themselves, comes Deepavali, the beautiful festival of lights indicating the victory of light over darkness, good over evil etc, and then just before pulling gracefully into the zone of gratitude and thanksgiving, I get to celebrate my birthday.

What isn’t to love about November? It is a time for hot tea, butter toasts, fall colors, the sounds of pattering rain, the warmth of a sweater, and all the wonderful things of Hygge.

Happy Thanksgiving!

November Novelty

A Version of this post appeared in The India Currents Magazine – the article focuses on communication.

The quality of the evening was ethereal. The cold November evenings had begun to set in. I had turned the thermostat up a couple of notches, the white light effused a warm glow against the fall colored curtains. Halloween was still fresh in everyone’s memory, Diwali had snuggled in, and spread its share of warmth and joy even amidst some moments of disquiet with raging fire and wind whipped storms.

 

 

I surveyed the house and felt a surge of warmth course through me. Dear friends and family were visiting, and I was glowing with pleasure at the companionship of the evening. The house had been through the cleaning wheel: which is to say that the closets were groaning and stuffed to their very brims. I warned guests to open any closet with care warning them that a dozen things could tumble out. All the children – residents and visitors, nodded with sincerity, but I found them an hour later playing hide-and-seek, and amazingly finding place to hide in the very closets that I thought sent me a clear memo to not put anything else in there. Oh well!

The conversation was ebbing and flowing with the fine food and beverages among the young and old alike. Jesty topics were making their way towards hefty ones, and laughter was being sprinkled with wrinkled looks of concentration as differing viewpoints were proffered, and evaluated. The beautiful feeling of minds changing slightly from their earlier stances mingled with the exasperation of trying to string complex thoughts into words – one word at a time, were at work, and I marveled at humanity once again.

“The art of conversation is the art of hearing as well as of being heard.”
― William Hazlitt, Selected Essays, 1778-1830

Can we get better? Absolutely. But I sometimes feel we lose sight of marvelous gift we have of empathy and of trying to understand one another. Moments in which we bestow upon one another the inestimable gift of attentive listening with a view to understanding. I was reminded of the saying, that I read somewhere a while ago.

Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity – Simone Weil

When we talk of meaningful moments, it is moments like these that we wish to savor. November is unusually so – whether it is because it is my birthday month or the time for Thanksgiving, and therefore a time for gratitude, or something else, I cannot say, but I find it is a good time of year to look back on the past year, reflect on the grains that made up the texture of the preceding months, and those months layered upon years, like a tree adding a ring to its makeup.

Sappy perhaps? But so is life. 

 

 

It is the time of year when I select books with happy endings, the time of year I make it a point to snuggle in with my books and children,  buckle down and write more for November is Novel Writing Month.

The air is nippier, the nights longer. It is also the time for crunch parties for in the area I live the trees are resplendent with the colors of Autumn. The gingko trees are turning gold (post coming up soon). There is no greater joy than seeing life scurry about in these changed surroundings. The promise of rain is in the air. Misty mornings make for a magical start. Even the waxing and waning of the moon brings with it a new joy for the nights longer and the evenings bring with it a different texture of joy. Kawaakari is sooner (Kawaakari – a beautiful Japanese word denoting the rays of the setting sun on a flowing river)

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It is a time to send thanks for all the small and big things in life. A time in short for us to enjoy Hygge. A wonderful word the Danish have, denoting the warmth emanating from inside even as the winters outside grow colder.

Here is to a wonderful season of the upcoming holidays, of nurturing light in a dark world.