If we pay attention, November’s light washes us in clarity, offering reminders of the lessons of love and loss.

November’s clear light reveals the bones of the landscape. We pare down to the essentials. What must go suddenly becomes clear. Shed the clutter. What is most important, that which must be held and cherished, comes into clearer view.

In our central Pennsylvania valley, rich layers of green and brown, rust, copper and gold, enshroud our fields and ridges. 

But the golds. The golds pop. Harvest gold. Pale gold. The gold of rich reminders.

Quiet, Gentle Light

This week, I had the good fortune to chat with accomplished painters, people who know about light.

What is it about this November light?  I asked them. 

Well, one painter said, the air holds less moisture now. That thick blanket of humid air August heaps upon us day after day has left. So our view into the distance tends to be clearer.

The sun is lower in the sky, too. Softer. This all makes sense.

The last of the leaves begin their final decay and descent. Loss and letting go is in the air. A fresh layer of nutrients now crunching underfoot. Some won’t bother to fall, remaining brown and crumpled through the winter, their green glory spent.

Listening for Lessons of Memory

To live — to have the good fortune to reach mid-life — is to collect milestone memories, year-by-year, layer upon layer. Perhaps yours also cluster around a single, loaded month? 

That’s my November.

November reminds me of long, quiet and soft grey days in the hospital at my dad’s bedside, in a battle with death, pulling and pleading from this side. No. No. No. Stay with us. Not now. Not yet! Pulling. Pulling.

He survived that one. 

November reminds me of letting go of a dying marriage. Done. Let’s free each other of this albatross and be grateful for what we learned, how we grew, and how it led us to the new places we each needed to go — on our own.

Earlier that autumn, while working in the garden I heard my intuition loud and clear. Hunker down girl, it warned. 

I listened. For the first time in a long time, I listened. The storm swept through.

No big decisions for me for what turned out to be a painful and remarkable, rich and golden year of growth. 

Fifty-one weeks later, I met the love of my life. 

The Sun Will Return

November is falling in love with my husband, when the words and melody of “Here Comes the Sun” took over my mental soundtrack, and we had our first Thanksgiving together. 

By December, I dreamed I had found a woman buried in the garden. I helped her brush off the soil and rise. I felt more alive than ever, and got the sense she was a part of me — a welcome, life-affirming sign.

Now, my husband and I host our family Thanksgiving dinner together. I get a little intense about it. My husband, as always, is my smooth, glassy lake. 

New Family Traditions

As we all sat down in the waning afternoon light to one of those early Thanksgiving meals, I explained how my family begins dinner with a traditional roll toss. One uncle asks for a roll and the other uncle sends it flying over the table. 

That year, my older stepson corrected. “Lisa, we’re your family.” My heart melted, and began to spill all over the polished vintage silver, mashed potatoes and mish-mash collection of white dinnerware. 

But before I could cry, he sailed a dinner roll across the room to his younger brother. 

New traditions.

November reminds me of final family gatherings in the midst of the long goodbye to my dad, as he slowly turned to driftwood before us.

November is pears. The pears on the first, surprise love note my husband mailed to me, after our first date alone at my house that Thanksgiving evening. (Read You Had Me at Pears.)

And the half a canned pear below a rounded dollop of cream cheese and glistening maraschino cherry. All atop a leaf of lettuce. My grandmother’s pear salad. 

When I was a kid, I tried hard to listen to the blessing once my aunts and uncles and cousins and mom gathered around my grandparents’ Thanksgiving table.

But I don’t remember the words spoken. What I most remember is the shiny red cherries. Laughter over the roll toss and that first bite of bright cherry, cream cheese and sweet pear, mashed together on my tongue.

Missing You

My intensity about the pears at Thanksgiving can trigger some eye-rolling around here. I’m still searching for just the right salad where the pears can take center stage, without a ton of work that derails the rest of the meal. Maybe this will be the year.

That sense of missing someone comes and goes. All month long.

Yesterday, my mother texted that we had lost a beloved relative to pancreatic cancer. Her message left me sad, hurt for his wife and sons, and relieved for him. May his suffering be over. 

Still, I hear her voice the morning my dad died of the same, awful disease. “This is the call,” she said. 

Feel it. Breathe. Move forward. Take the next step.

Is the purpose of our lives to be happy all the time? 

No. 

Fully Live, All of It

The mission is to live fully — the sadness, grief, joy, satisfaction, bliss, rage and concern for all that is still so wrong in this world and empathy for all those who suffer. 

All of it. 

To be kind. Because … what else? And to defy the darkness of the world. 

To appreciate the full living. To discern and move ever-closer on our path with purpose.

November washes us with clarifying light and gratitude. Prepares us for the coming darkness. Offers us celebration for the full experience of this life — even the most painful, excruciating parts.

I am deeply grateful for November’s light and reminders.

I wish you the gifts I see in November. The clarity to prune out what should go and make space for new growth, to cultivate and cherish what is most important.

I wish you the soft, gentle and comforting light for your losses. I wish to remind you: Live fully. Feel it all. Breathe. Take the next step through the crunchy leaves.