November Thoughts

Look at the austere perfection of this scene.  It's like living in a painting by Corot.  Just as there's a stark beauty in barrenness, there's an ironic freedom in loss---as when the trees lose their leaves to stand bare and show their true forms.  It's lovely in a monochromatic way: gray branches stretched out against a gray sky.  If things weren't taken from us, would we ever let them go?  And if we never let anything go, could there be growth and life?  November teaches us to let go of things that can no longer serve us...like last summer's greenery.

November strips the trees of their leaves, and the skies of their light, and the air of its warmth, and our lives of their illusions.  Remember all the unmet goals of the bright, scorching summer?  Gone, irretrievable, half-forgotten.  Remember how you were gonna get that fence painted, and that door repaired, and that phone call made, and that article written?  Remember how you had all the time in the world, and you were gonna be young forever?  

Back in September, I collected about 65 wild black walnuts in their pungent green husks, but I put off husking them till a few days ago.  By that time the majority of them had gone bad.  Once you've broken them out of their green outer shells, you toss them in water to see if they float.  It turns the water inky black.  If they do float--which most did--they're no longer any good.  I was able to salvage only 20.  They'll be ready for cracking by January.

I do love country churches.  This is the Presbyterian church in Plumer, founded in 1823.  They should have celebrated their 200th anniversary just two years ago, but their fading sign--which clearly has not been touched in a very long time--says some weird thing about "Happy 151 years."  Were they celebrating their building's birthday?  Not much happening here these days.  It's a perfect November scene--dormancy, decline, a normal death.  All things must run their course, in time.  Someday, in the brilliance and warmth of some future summer day, I'll explore their old cemetery...

Actually, I may yet do it this winter.  This church never really had a glory day.  It has struggled along since the 1860s, when the minister struck it rich in the oil boom and went off to live the high life in some more glamorous place.  (Funny how wealth reveals a person's true character, just like November reveals a tree's true form.)  Last I heard, they had 4 aged church members left, no minister, and no Sunday services.  The sign unironically declares, "Christ is alive.  The church is alive."  But things are always getting gone from the world, aren't they?  Even things of goodness, truth, and beauty are forever disappearing.  You just have to let them go and hope that something equally good or better will step in to fill the void.

The November full moon was a beauteous thing to behold.  It felt like some kind of weird midday, shining its eerily brilliant light over our old farmhouse near Pittsburgh.

Here's Pittsburgh from the slightly spooky elevator at Mercy Hospital.  You definitely want to take the stairs if you're scared of heights.  I like the quiet decay of November, the sweet smell of moldering leaves, the hunkering down indoors, the refuge taken in small comforts (fires, music, candles, coffee, books).  I like November for the hush that it seems to bring over everything.  The soft grays and browns are a joy to weary eyes that have been burned by too much summer sun.  The cool temperatures are a relief.  I'm considering getting trained and certified as a "forest therapy practitioner."  Not to replace my current career, only to expand it...