The month began with good weather. We had no snow, quite a lot of sunshine and pleasant temperatures for the time of year. Good weather for walking and finishing off any yard work. Of course, it made me think of the climate emergency that the world faces. Though it’s not unusual to have clement weather in November, it did remind me of the difficult summer – drought, fire, heatwaves, floods.
Personally, spring in my yard was wonderful – new plants
doing well, decent weather.
But then no rain made things more difficult. Birds attacked
my young plants even though I put out seeds for them and kept water in the bird
bath. We also had a mouse infestation in my neighborhood.
Snow did come in November, as it inevitably does here, sometimes
early, this year rather late. The lateness of snow felt good, a positive when
so much else was negative.
Still, we have to look for the positives among the
challenges. That’s what keeps life going.
For me, one of the positives has been to finish my fourth book
in the fantasy series ‘The Leather Book Tales.’ I’ve done some of the interior production
of the book and am now waiting for the cover to be designed.
I’ve also found time for water colour painting again, and I
hope to do more.
In the process of painting a butterfly for a card and looking for a good quote about butterflies, I found an American writer and educator called Alice Freeman Palmer. She grew up on a farm, the eldest of four children, during a time when women generally did not go to university. Her father left the farm to study to be a doctor, leaving Alice’s mother and the children to run the farm. Alice promised her parents that if they paid for her to go to university, she would work to help educate the younger children. She did this by teaching school, becoming a principal, and then a professor of history at Wellesley College. At the age of 26 she became President of Wellesley. She married George Palmer several years later and resigned from Wellesley, spending a couple of years as a travelling lecturer. Later, she was Dean of Women at Chicago University. Alice died too young, at the age of 47 from complications after surgery.
As I get older some things have become difficult. I don’t have the same amount of energy, and winter is less enjoyable. Overly spicy foods don’t agree with me, and I have to take more care in general with what I eat. Arthritis and aches and pains constrain some activities.
However, if I pace myself and take breaks when needed I can
still do things that I enjoy: reading and writing, cooking and baking, walking and
gardening (or snow shoveling in winter), going to movies or streaming them on
line.
Covid 19 has also made me cautious about being out in
public and spending time with other people, but that can be mitigated somewhat
by wearing masks and getting vaccinated (which I did some time ago). I’m
hopeful that this pandemic will end eventually and that Covid 19 will be just
another one of the flu varieties that we can cope with as part of everyday
life.
Reading poetry can help, too.
November by the Sea (by D.H.
Lawrence)
Now in November nearer comes the sun
down the abandoned
heaven.
As the dark closes
round him, he draws nearer
as if for our company.
At the base of the
lower brain
the sun in me declines
to his winter solstice
and darts a few gold
rays
back to the old year's
sun across the sea.
A few gold rays
thickening down to red
as the sun of my soul
is setting
setting fierce and
undaunted, wintry
but setting, setting
behind the sounding sea
between my ribs.
The wide sea winds,
and the dark
winter, and the great
day-sun, and the sun in my soul
sinks, sinks to
setting and the winter solstice
downward they race in
decline
my sun, and the great
gold sun.
By the way, D.H, Lawrence also wrote a poem
called ‘Butterfly.’ You can find it online.
