Do geese see god, a palindrome and also a question I ask myself as I see their lumpy bow formation (squawking like they are the only creatures in the world, driven south by biology like I’m driven to the sun). How do they know when it is time to come and time to go? Sometimes I think I was meant to be born with wings, but then I would miss the comfort of seeing a flying thing and knowing that there are things greater than I.

(Nov. 4)

When do you think the really good things will start happening again? This year has gutted me like everyone else. I feel greedy for the gifts of the past, the enormity of which we never fully appreciated. I need to go to a concert and feel the music reverberate in my bones, pick warm strawberries from the vine, hug my friends with abandon, run breathlessly up the stairs to my grandparents’ kitchen, crowd into a steaming restaurant on a cold night, dance at a wedding until I’m sweaty, squeeze my nephew’s cheeks, walk through a museum so slowly my back starts to ache, eat an ice cream cone while wondering the streets, have at least one day without wondering when things will get better.

(Nov. 3)

The only real requirement of writing is to pay attention. The words you are trying to write are already there—you just have to know how to pluck them from the ether. Consider the robin. Before she begins, the nest she seeks to build lies in pieces around her. She knows how to be diligent in her search for the perfect malleable twig, knows precisely how to weave leaves into the gaps to keep the wind out. So too am I a scavenger in this existence, deconstructing and scrutinizing and rebuilding until there is some semblance of order in my life. I don’t know how to be good, I only know how to be true—that is to say, maybe there is some hope for me after all. 

(Nov. 2)

Why do we submit our twelve months to popularity contests, pitting, say, February against June as if they are human beings and not just names for the passing of time? Better to align your body to the rhythm of the seasons and press each month close like the gifts they are. For instance, November is a wonder—it has nothing to prove, and in its quiet barrenness it carries a clarity that few other months offer. Here begins the shift to the deeper reflections of winter. The light is thin and has lost its warmth, and in the starkness there is no hiding. There is solace in that space between the bare trees—no longer do you have to resist winter’s arrival. Without the distractions warmth brings there is space to breathe and surrender to the long, inquisitive, reflective months ahead. 

In the mornings I’ve been listening to Bon Iver’s album For Emma, Forever Ago. It’s a record I’ve known and loved for years, but I recently discovered that the album was recorded in his dad’s northern Wisconsin hunting cabin over a three month span, November-January. Suddenly the music makes sense. You can feel the gray wind, the ugliness of a bare terrain yet to know snow, the deer and the logs and the grass and the branches all blurred into a khaki landscape that makes the visit of a red cardinal all the more magnificent. Hold these months close, the music says. There is room for surprises here.

(Nov. 1)