Ode to November

Artwork by Ava Maggioni

 

 

I had the first depressive episode of my life in the fifth grade, beginning promptly as November’s grey rolled in. It was a sort of dissatisfaction I’d never experienced before, the days bleeding together and fuzzing out until they felt like nothing. I fuzzed out into nothing. I remember thinking so clearly (and dramatically!) that ‘this world was not for me and I was wrong for it.’ The seasonal switch from October to November is always so disciplined, the air turning cruel and cold immediately after Halloween ends. Perhaps it’s the longer nights and darker days, but for years, my psyche had been as disciplined as the weather. The first of the month had long since marked the start of long, dreary winter blues. 

 Though, if I have learnt anything with age, it is that little in this life is permanent, and little in life is unchangeable. A couple of years back, a poem I wrote manifested into a ‘Winter List.’ It went as such:

 

Here is a List for when you forget you are Alive.

• Paint your nails

• Collect pearlescent shells

• Drink warm tea with cinnamon

• Dance

• Go to the field you call Home

 

So I followed it. As November days came, I sat in the yellow light of my bedroom with a hot mug of tea, I danced with friends to 80s hits, I lay, bundled up, under a blackening sky out where the grass grows long enough to braid. The month softened at the edges, and I softened with it. 

What a bizarre thought, that now November is the time of the year I can feel so at home, so cosy, so me. For those who, like me, catch those seasonal blues, I’ve adapted my winter list into a more comprehensive means to maneuver the season: here’s my Ode to November.

 

Sight

1. Welcome to the Month of the Tartan! 

November the first hails a very special event for me: I get to bring out my 100% cashmere tartan scarf. It’s soft and lovely and an absolute prized possession of mine. I bought it in New York a couple of Octobers ago, and wore it every single day until spring came. 

Maybe it’s the end-of-year Christmasy vibe, but November is very tartan to me. I’ve become sort of a sucker for it, trying to accumulate as much as I can that’s dressed in the pattern: skirts, scarves, coin purses and the like. Last year, a friend of mine made me a mixtape, and he drew a little tartan pattern on the CD. Tartan anything, tartan everything. 

One of my favourite things about the temperature dropping below freezing is how the city hauls out all their winter gear. In the subway or when people-watching from the library window, I take note of tartan winter accessories: A green, blue and red crossed scarf, a plaid puffer jacket, a punk-esque patterned cap. It’s a lot of fun, actually, like we’re all in on a little secret, living the month of the tartan together. 

Textures and patterns are special like that – once you take on an affinity for them, it’s a little boost of joy when you spot them out in the cold. Here are a couple of my favourite November textures and where they may be found: 

1. Soft, dull, felt-like green – the long grass on the hills that line the highway after the first snow melts, willow trees in the wind
2. Lacy froth spirals – anywhere that serves coffee in a mug instead of a closed paper cup, doilies, mini whirlpools in the creek 
3. Houndstooth – secondhand skirts, old ladies’ bags, the exterior of the Houndstooth Bar on College
4. Pearlescence – jewelry, nail polish, oil slick on the roads, buttons on old cardigans
5. Cracking vinyl – 60s style diner booths, the big couches in university common areas
6. Steam’s cottony cloudiness – your breath outside, smoke stacks, the windows of the bus late at night 
7. Stripes – my friend Sarah’s sweaters, your face and arms after deep sleep, candy canes 

2. Strangers in the Snow

November cuts autumn’s golds and oranges with the winter’s first snowfall. This year, it came early, snow falling the first weekend of the month, piling like cotton on the pine trees, turning the city soft and quiet. 

Walking through campus, I thought that the people were beautiful, bundled up under scarves in the snow, flushed cheeks and snowflakes in lashes, their breath fogging up the air. Everybody was out rolling snowmen and catching snowflakes on tongues: snow always pairs with a surge of childlike excitement. For a new friend of mine, an international student from Costa Rica, this wasn’t only the first snow of the winter, but the first snow ever. She’s been ecstatic about the winter – her smile so big as the lazy flakes floated down. 

Later that day, I met up with an old friend as well. I hadn’t seen him for a couple of months, so it was extra sweet to toss snowballs at each other, make snow angels. As I lay in the snow, the chill seeping through my coat, it all felt so familiar. How many years has it been, the two of us lying in the snow, smiling stupid like kids? The first time we were actually kids. Now we sit in my university campus, watching the people go by as the sun slips away. 

I saw a boy with cheeks as red as his toque taking pictures of a family with a young daughter before he hurried off to class. The girl had looked so awed by the sight of the Hogwarts-esque building amidst all the white. I wondered if it was maybe her first time here, reminiscing of the many times my parents had brought me to the same campus as a kid, the excitement I had felt. I wondered if her parents had gone to school here, too. Maybe they had met on a day like this. Then they were gone, continuing on their walk. I guess strangers in the snow are strangers until they’re not, until they’re friends, they’re lovers, they’re family. 

I guess what I’m trying to say here is to experience together. Share that excitement, that hope, that history that everyone is feeling all at once.  Stand out there with new friends, old friends, strangers on the street, let the snow fall around all of you. It’s going to, anyways. 

Sound

3. Novembrrr Mix!

Personally, I think that the successful immortalization of any moment in time is contingent on a good playlist. Friend’s 19th birthday party, vacations, simple times you want to remember? Make a playlist. Listen to it repeatedly. You’ll hear those same songs, months, years later, and be right back there; you’ll feel the weather on your skin. My November mix is continually built on a core group of songs. These are those I listened to during the first November that relented. Over the years, the list has grown, but always follows the same sorta vibe. Fair warning, I’m not great at describing music, but to me it’s a mix of songs for the coziness of my bedroom, songs that feel a little bit pearlescent, and songs that like the fog in the air outside. If that makes absolutely no sense to you (which likely it did not. Oops), here’s a good ol’ list.

 

THE OLD

Bobby – Alex G 

Call it Fate, Call it Karma – The Strokes

Mr Unhappy –  Julie Delpy

Kinky Love – Pale Saints 

Banquet – Bloc Party

At Home – Slow Pulp

Pandora – Cocteau Twins 

Must be Dreaming – Frou Frou

All is Full of Love – Björk

On Green Dolphin Street – Vince Guaraldi 

I’ve Seen it All – Björk & Thom Yorke

 

THE NEW

Little Secrets – Passion Pit 

First Song – Band of Horses

I’m On Fire – Bruce Springsteen

1969 – Boards of Canada

Thymia – Fleet Foxes (thank youuu Elisa!)

Coffee Homeground – Kate Bush

Broadview – Slow Pulp

Jackie Down The Line – Fontaines DC

(David Bowie I Love You) Since I Was Six – The Brian Jonestown Massacre (thanks Sam)

Oxygène, Pt. 4 – Jean-Michel Jarre

White Fire – Angel Olsen

Voice in the Headphones – Mount Eerie (thank you Duncan!) 

Rilkean Heart – Cocteau Twins

 

I could definitely keep going with this, but I’m going to hold off. Enjoy!

 

Scent

4. On Hairspray and Being Both Here and There  

I was talking with a friend of mine about the scents of our childhood: she mentioned how the pungency of hairspray would put her right back under stage lights, rehearsing for ballet. I, the laundry detergent of my childhood crush, how I catch it in passing, still today, and feel stupid and gooey and pleasantly jittery all over again. There’s a reason for this, by the way. The place our brains process smell is directly connected to the hippocampus, where our memories are formed. So smell, more than anything, can make a memory feel real all over again. 

November, I find, bears consistent smells. It’s very disciplined in this way: the scent of the iciness of the air, the deep redolence of dying grass, the earthiness of wool, cider, the peppermint in my tea, it’s the same every year. Sometimes I feel like I live every November over again at once, just through the smells. 

I’m a fan of tradition, but specifically during the colder months. Follow suit like scent: like the fragrances of the month, you can repeat as well. Have special get-togethers that are reserved for November weekends. My friends and I have our annual Ikea visit on the third Friday of the month. We act out elaborate scenes in the display rooms, buy gifts for our loved ones and later, invariably end up at a string-light-draped sports bar, queuing up Wham! on the sound system. It’s always something I look forward to, every time reminiscent of the last, memories of how we were a year ago, who we were a year ago, inevitably coming up. Everything is so different, yet here we are, ordering the same drinks, making all of the same jokes. 

Tradition, more than anything, serves as a good reminder. I have lived November before, I will live it again. It has been kind before, and it will be again. You’ll be okay at 19, 20, 21, because you have been at 15, 16, 17, 18. Everything is different, yet with the smell in the air, here we are all the same. 

5. Do it for Dale (Cooper)!

I’ve never been a big perfume person, but recently I got one of those little sample vials of Golden Rule by Phlur and kind of fell in love with it. Its notes are mandarin splash, jasmine blossom, and coconut milk. To me, it’s got a sort of holiday season nostalgia about it, like I’m nine and passing some beautiful woman in the Center of Performing Arts’ restroom during the intermission of the Nutcracker. 

Despite the small sample size, I’ve been trying to use it as often as possible. This November, I’d like to advocate for indulgence. The season is cruel, and sometimes you have to allow yourself to soften it. Eat a chocolate late into the night, take a break from studying to lie in the snow, linger with a friend for a moment longer than you should, make hot cocoa on the stove. To quote the one and only Dale Cooper, “Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don’t plan it. Don’t wait for it. Just let it happen. It could be a new shirt at the men’s store, a cat nap in your office chair or two cups of good, hot, black coffee.”

 

Taste

6. A Very Kind Kitchen  

Some of the best experiences of my life have been in the kitchen. To name a few: Laughing over hot pot, washing dishes with my best friend during our annual Christmas bash, making chilli that ended up way too spicy, whilst Soft Cell and Wham! played, etc., etc. I really could go on forever. There’s such a golden light in my kitchen. It’s been left there from all of the times my loved ones and I have spent laughing and cooking and eating together, these moments too good not to leave remnants. 

I think there’s something really special about the act of creating with others. When I was eleven, a good friend of mine and I invented an entire fantasy universe—down to government structure, science, religion, etc. We had maps drawn of the place. As I got older, I found that art became more solitary. I wrote poems, I painted, I shared these works, but they were only ever me- the medium wasn’t quite right for togetherness. 

Cooking, though, is its perfect medium. During high school, I was lucky to meet a really extraordinary woman who owns a sustainable farm. Last November, she coordinated an event there for me and a small group of students. We had cider around the fire, did a tour and met the animals (Sonny the horse, I love you very much). The most special part of the day, though, was making a meal together. There was some magic about how just over a dozen people, some of whom had only just met, crammed into a kitchen could fit together so well. There was always a job to be done, and always a person there to do it. Everyone fell into one another perfectly. The room seemed to swell with how right it was in there. 

Winter is a naturally lonely time, and it’s more important than ever to find your way back to your community. Whether this be friends, family, or simply those you share space with, I encourage you to sacrifice your kitchen, cram as many people into it as you can, and make a meal together. Let the gold light fill up the room. 

Feel

7. Back Again in Middle Earth 

In one of my most formative Novembers, perhaps age 10 or 11, I watched the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings series for the first time and it changed everything ever. I fell so head over heels for the universe, for Middle Earth. I was enthralled by the Shire’s sloping hills, Erebor’s grand dwarven halls, the grandiose of Rivendell. Middle Earth, in a way, became an escape, a place that my mind could visit to escape the drearyness of here. I wanted to be out there, riding horses in the plains, getting lost (or unlost) in Mirkwood. I wanted an adventure.  

Now, I’m an adamant defender of the Hobbit series (I like them a lot. So sue me.) and I think a big reason for this—besides obviously nostalgia— is that Bilbo and his journey spurred a longing for adventure in me that’s lasted my entire life. As I’ve gotten older, this feeling has been paramount in softening the winter blues. It helps to remember that there is so much out there to experience, so much more adventure to be had. 

My pen pal told me once she had a dream about me. I’d visited her in Germany and we sat in her bedroom with her cats and listened to Ethel Cain together. It stuck in my mind for weeks after that. I want to, so badly, to travel, to see all of my friends. It’s one of the longest fantasies of mine, to be travelling in Europe, visiting places like Berlin or Vienna, travelling west to Glasgow and Dublin. 

My best friend and I also have such dreams together. An apartment in the city, paper lanterns in the hall and meals together, watching movies at night. Everybody we know crammed between walls on birthdays and holidays. Sometimes we’ll think way into the future, giggling about how if we have kids, how we’d make them match outfits, how they could be best friends too. 

It’s a good way to keep going, to remember that the only way to make it there is to live through this, to be here, now. It’s all so much more bearable to live through dreary months when you dream about all that could be. 

I do, though, feel deep down that I will have these things. Anyway, who says a dream has to stay a dream? A brilliant friend of mine told me that what she loved most about Tolkien was the fact that within his universe, myth and magic were not separate. There are no real myths in Middle Earth. Her example went as such: a hypothetical myth could be that a long, long time ago the sun was a flower and the moon was a fruit and they were hung up there in the sky – in Tolkien’s texts, that wouldn’t have really been a myth. It was real, the sun was literally a flower, the moon a fruit, and someone’s great grandfather saw it happen. So yeah, who says a dream has to stay a dream? Between the margins of adventure, anything can be real.

 

8. My Meadow, My Lionheart 

This past summer, I moved houses. It was only a town over, and I’ve loved every second I’ve been living in the new house, the big yard, the blue walls of my bedroom, and the proximity to horse stables is very exciting. Still, though, something is missing. When I was younger, I was a hoarder. Everything I had ever loved stayed held tight in my hands, everything I’d ever lost stuck in my mind as a longing. I think I’ve never been able to truly shake that habit. As change comes, I worry, I will never truly be free from grief. 

Growing up in the old house, as a kid with a bike and limited screen time, I spent my time exploring, crawling through holes in fences, and wandering through mysterious trails under the bridge. It was during these days, a November evening, that I found my Field. I stumbled upon it by accident, the forest parting just right to reveal a section of land that seemed to be missed by development. A winding creek split through it, large willows standing serenely on the horizon line, their weeping arms painted orange by the setting sun. As wind passed through the landscape, the whole place sounded like riversong. The first time I found it, I felt so eerily at home, like I’d known it before. In the many years I lived there, I’d often find myself back in the field. I’d go when upset, confused, or simply when I felt myself missing. I brought my best friends there on my sixteenth birthday, and it felt like the whole place opened up to hail us back home. I’m not a religious person, really, but I think I’d go in moments where I’d want to feel God. There was something divine about being there amongst the beauty of it all, being a part of it. 

The spring before I moved, I visited one last time, and I said goodbye. True that I could visit again, drive out there, but I felt that it wouldn’t be the same: it wasn’t mine, not anymore, not really. I’m not typically of the belief that as you grow up, you have to leave your childhood behind (realistically, nobody is stopping you from making a pillow fort with your siblings). There are, though, things that simply leave, and try as you will, they won’t stay. It’s been strange, this November, to not have my Field to go to when things feel strange. It’s left me missing.

I’m not writing this to suggest a replacement or a solution. I don’t think one truly exists, not for grief. Instead, maybe, what I really want is to be brave about it. Change will come, as change does: as I wrote earlier, little in this life is permanent. What I’m saying, I suppose, is that maybe this list won’t hold forever. Life has a silly way of twisting things around on you, and maybe, despite it all, November will hail blues again. The things you know might fail, traditions may end. It is in these times, in these states of missing, that I hope to be brave. 

My Meadow, My Lionheart, I find my way back to you again.