Dear November,
You are a velvet pouch of rubies and garnets, of golden topaz and magical emeralds. I try to inhale you, deep into my lungs and into my spirit. Your breath of cool, night frost turns to fog in the early morning. Comforted by your crisp embrace, I drive along country roads with my eyes filled by beauty and my heart filled with hope.
beautiful patterns everywhere— my anxious eyes rest on shadows, running along edges and staring hard until the picture changes, gets defined, becomes blinding and then visible—
changed, altered, simplified,
I am calm once again
in the morning i stand at the window, the steam from my coffee makes me squint—
i think about windows, portals, visions of dreams, of flying
away and above and beyond what we know, through fields of corn and poppy
riding on the back of pick-up trucks to watch fireworks and feel alive again
write something positive–
something about amber leaves
or silver cobwebs
the smell of books and brewing coffee,
or 3:00 am labyrinthine logic
write about her soft whisper
and long shadows on the bricks
as the sun sets on another long October day
I want to write about the state of our political world, the injustice, the oversight, the ignorance—but that’s not what my blog is about, I don’t talk about politics
I want to write about the state of our collective consciousness, the pros and cons of a hive-mentality, the necessity of it for survival as well as its potential to negatively influence culture—but that’s not what my blog is about, I don’t talk about morals
I want to write about being a citizen of the world, how average people don’t immigrate for fun—folks leave their country, their language, their food, their families, their jobs, their homes in order to improve their lives and the lives of their children by prospering in a safe environment. There is a protocol for immigration, that is understood. There are laws to be observed in order for a society to function, all very true. But desperate people do desperate things. And if you’ve never been desperate in this life, count yourself lucky—but that’s not what my blog is about, I don’t talk about empathy
I want to write about misogyny—the idea that in the year 2025 we still shame victims of abuse, we still use laws to control women’s bodies, we still base medical testing on males only, we are willing to vote for a convicted criminal rather than a black woman—but that’s not what my blog is about, I don’t talk about racial and gender equality
It might be time to bring this little blog that is 11 years old to a close for now. I’m not sure, I’ll have to think a bit more upon it. I’ve lost my enthusiasm for making my writing public on this forum. I’ve always thought of the writing here as a bit of a respite from reality. But, I don’t know, I can’t quite work out if it’s shallow in the face of so much that is wrong in our lives or a testament to all that is right in my own (privileged) life, most likely a little of both.
I’ll leave you for now, with some images that I do blog about: a robin’s egg found in a potted fern, irises and my little sweet girl, Juliet. Be well readers, walk the world with as much inner peace as you can possibly acquire.
Driving down the road in the fog, early in the morning; the trees look like people waving gallantly as I pass.
Radiohead plays softly in the background—
“I don’t care if it hurts I want to have control
I want a perfect body, I want a perfect soul
I want you to notice when I’m not around”
The deer lift their heads and their tails, watch my progress silently. The air feels thick and heavy—
“Whatever makes you happy, whatever you want”
Windows down, the coldness seeps into the car on the edges of the whipping wind. I look across the water, bridge after bridge after bridge after tunnel after overpass after bridge. All these links getting us where we think we want to be.
“What the hell am I doing here?
I don’t belong here
I don’t belong here”
The song ends and I turn off the music. Taking a deep breath, I roll up the windows and turn on the heat. The quiet feels soothing, the fog starts to lift.
I see my dog in the window and open the door to the smell of brewing coffee—a welcoming smell and a welcoming bark.
Lyrics from the song, Creep by Radiohead from the album Pablo Honey written by Thom Yorke
Spring arrives and the woods are damp, rich, earthy. You can smell it and almost taste it and certainly feel it—hopefulness.
“Looking back on this stretch of time, not just my days in Harrogate but all the years between the two Great Wars, I often think how fine it should have been. We allowed ourselves to believe evil had been defeated, as if evil never did raise twice….The very stars dimmed from the lights reflected on earth, and you could never do what I’d just done, escape from your ordinary life and fade away, undetectable.”
Excerpt from The Christie Affair by Nina de Gramont
she said it wasn’t the taste she didn’t like, but the texture—and it started me thinking about the texture of things: the softness of velvet, the roughness of bark, the flakiness of peeling paint and also— love that laces a conversation, or dread behind a day, joy around a child, sincerity beside a promise, desperation inside a life
at night, we look at art; women with long dresses and ladders leaning on moons, curled up statues fight the
dark evening chill—fog rises from the damp leaves and seeps into our bones, into our exhaled breaths as we
contemplate unspoken questions, from unspoken conversations with dead poets and philosophers and husbands and wives
spanishwoods 