Postby Tramp » Thu Nov 27, 2008 8:28 am
NOVEMBER, NEW ENGLAND, AND RITUALS OF SEASON
Weather affects me, and this time of year always seems extra charged. That clear vivid sunlight, the first frost or snow, glimpses of ocean and the actual terrain revealed by downed leaves, the dramatic skies and early darkness, Thanksgiving and Christmas approaching, it all adds up to quite an emotional broth.
The fall seems to carry added weight for New Englanders because most of us need to prepare for winter. Sealing up the house and basement, fixing any roof leaks, relocating freezables, storing fire wood and pellets, pruning trees, carrying porch furniture to the barn, tarping the old Chevrolet in the yard, these are some of the things on my list. Now in the evening I detour into my basement and gloat over my neat rows of oak and the four tons of pellet sacks, and I'm a happy squirrel.
Not many people understand the pleasure a basement can give. But when you've done the work yourself—remortared the foundation's granite blocks, stone and brick, replaced rotted cellar window sills, reglazed the muntins, run new wire to outlets above, removed the asbestos and reinsulated all the hot water and heating pipes, laid sections of fresh cement floor over dirt, not to mention hauling out a hundred years of collected debris including the final layer of forgotten coal—it can be satisfying. On the phone I tell my girlfriend I'm going into the salt mines for the day, and she knows what I mean, but you have to be cautious, or you can get to feeling like a mole after a while.
I consider November the most visually beautiful month with its subtle coloring and austere barrenness, but it also has a seriousness because of winter's approach, and I'm reminded again that we live pretty far north. Maybe Christmas lights are an attempt to penetrate the gloom. I prefer the multicolor bulbs (more cheerful) and hang them about two weeks before the day, and for some peculiar reason I prefer a cold even snowy afternoon for installing. Some years I've had to pour myself a whisky to warm up though I rarely drink whisky.
In January, on the below zero nights, I like to crank my wood stove and look at the lacey firmaments of ice on the window glass. These are usually moon-lit because the coldest nights are cloudless and windless, leading to an unearthly quiet if I step out onto the porch. Strangely, for the first few minutes, it never seems that cold, and then it seizes you, that arctic grip, and you dash for the comfort of the stove, even more cozy by the contrast. I always think of Jack London, the Yukon, and the story about the voyager trying to build a fire.
March is the cruelest month (it could be chucked right out of the calendar in my opinion), but I do have one ritual in March or early April. One Easter weekend thirty years ago, I spent the holiday at my godmother's Victorian in NH; the only holiday I've spent with that family and therefore special. The last afternoon, as everyone got ready to head out in various directions, we screwed a few remaining beers into the spring snow and sat out on the fieldstone steps in the sun, saying good-bye. Remembering that, every year I wait for a sunny day and drink beer chilled in the last tongues of granular snow. I drink to the end of winter, the joy of that caressing warmth on my face, all the friends and family that are gone.
May is the most wonderful month with its fresh greens and rain. I had a tradition for twenty years called "The Spring Green Run," when I drove from Maine to Vermont and back just to see those grass greens and young buds along the road. I'd wind my way west on 3, snake through the Augusta rotaries, motor the lakey isthmus of Wayne, turn left on 219 (does anyone remember the pre-repaved era of the maddening bumps?), up into Bethel where I'd locate Route 2, past my hometown of Gorham and the White Mountains, across the rise and dip of 115 (A nice rest area for a lunch at the crest), through Bethlehem, then the relaxing section of interstate past the dammed up Connecticut River called Moore Reservoir, and so on to Vermont. That drive really opened up the heart after being cooped inside the for five months.
I need rituals in my life, and I prefer those that bring me closer to nature. As a culture I think we've moved away from nature and have fallen into commercialized rituals. There is a grounding force in nature unrivaled by anything else. When we really feel nature, we must also recognize our own smallness and insignificance, and I believe this humbling is positive. A ritual is something that gauges each year, something to look forward to during difficult times; it focuses a specific season into a moment, forms a lasting memory, and reconnects you to other periods in your life. These memories then become like an emotional cache that can be used when needed, a reminder that better times exist, a raft past the bleak and hopeless peninsulas that can jut into the current.
On Thanksgivings, I brine and baste a turkey, and when everything is about ready, I walk around the yard a couple laps and look at the house in the cooling twilight, lit windows and cheerful activity inside. As I walk I reflect on what I've accomplished and what I still need to do, kind of a meditative overview of that year. Everything outside is tidy, trimmed, raked, battened, closed, ready for months of snow and ice. My life is rarely as organized, but it's the holiday to be thankful for what you have, not desirous of what you don't. I take one last lap in the near darkness to get good and cold, then I head back inside—that wondrous smell of warm supper and hot rolls—and sit down to eat with those I care about.
That a life will be spent gaining inches,
When this distance is read in miles.
Will we be getting updates?
