November Looks Out
Toward the Chalky Horizon
At the flower shop, you walk by the polite gerbera daisies and raucous sunflowers. You admire both, but they’re not what you’re looking for today, even though the outrageousness of the red-toned sunflowers causes you to pause. Moving on, you brush past the buckets of lilies—white, orange, peach, coral. Behind the gorgeous murder of lilies rest quaint offerings of wispy green ferns and fibrous salal. In this context, they do nothing for you. Similar to iceberg lettuce, those leaves only work when accompanied by something much more savory.
You have come here today in search for dahlias and nothing else will do. You find them next to the cash register, huddled in rubber-banded bunches, wading in water up to what would be their ankles if they had them. Hand-written on one of the V-shaped vases is the message: “Sat: The last dahlia delivery of the season from Campbell Farms.” Even the hearty dahlias must rest eventually.
Back home, you carry in three bunches of dahlias and a bottle of sweet vermouth. On your way to the kitchen, you look into the living room. You are getting used to the new arrangement, though you never thought you would. The clock declares: “It’s Four. Ten. P.M.” There’s just enough time to fill the ice bucket and set out the appetizers.
Sometime around five, you wonder where November is. You text him:
»Hey there - I’m looking forward to spending time with you. Let me know when you’re heading over. xo!«
No reply. After a few minutes, you put the deviled eggs back in the refrigerator. A healthy portion of an hour goes by before your phone alert sounds.
»I forgot! Making my way there now. sorry ..«
While you haven’t always been on good terms with November, you’re beginning to make peace with his absentmindedness. It’s not that he doesn’t care about you. Rather, he cares about many things, a great majority of which are not you specifically you. He’s got a lot on his plate, and a mind full of ideas; his blood is not cold, nor his bones mean. Not even one of them.
November finally arrives, a little sooner than you figured after receiving his text. You open the door and find him standing there with a bottle of bourbon out in front of him. His hair sweeps about his face in a disheveled but not unattractive way. His ruddy skin is set off by his caramel-colored cable-knit sweater. He looks like he has just returned from a mountaineering expedition, or a photo shoot for the Overland catalog.
-For you, he says, handing you the bottle of bourbon.
It’s actually for him, but you don’t mind.
As you begin the preparations for the cocktails, November relays his latest adventures, of which there are many. When he arrives at an especially amusing part he doesn’t wait for you to laugh. He laughs hard enough for the both of you. But his laugh is so wonderfully contagious, there’s nothing left to do but join him.
You hand him his drink. “Here you are: a Manhattan—perfect.”
-Ah, you remembered, he replies.
-You know, I had to explain three different times to a bartender in Budapest what a perfect Manhattan was. It really threw him for a loop for a moment. He worked at it several times…tasting it, throwing it out, starting over. Tasting it again. After fifteen minutes, I gave up. I said, just make me whatever you want, whatever you like. But he wouldn’t hear of it. He said, ‘No, I’ll make you the perfect Manhattan.’ His hands shook and his glasses were so thick, I thought, maybe he can’t see what he’s doing—
You’re waiting for him to finish this story so that you can toast to his arrival and take a first sip of your champagne—
-Finally, he handed me the most beautiful glass, and it certainly looked right. I took a sip, and I’ll never forget it. It was absolutely perfect. Incredible.
He raises his glass. Now you’re worried about the drink you’ve made him, which is probably not incredible. He tells you it’s great. November is nothing if not honest, so you take it as a true compliment.
You move into the living room with the cocktails as November tells you what a fantastic summer he had, ending with the train ride from the East Coast: the books he read, the live jazz he heard while stopping overnight in Chicago, the painter he met over breakfast one morning.
-Ah. I’m rambling…tell me about your summer. He puts his hand on yours — his fingers are cool, but not unpleasantly so.
As you begin, his expression changes and his eyes lock onto yours. His gaze is intense, almost piercing. November doesn’t look at you; he looks inside of you. It’s almost alarming, this level of attention. He’s locked on every word you say, which makes you self-conscious, because you don’t have the knack for verbal acuity that he does. You’re afraid you’re going to bore him, but if, in fact, you do, he would never say so.
-Marvelous, he says, as you tell him what you’ve been up to.
Shortly before midnight, November calls it a day. You show him to the guestroom and he hugs you good-night.
You wake up and discover you’ve slept in past 8:30 for which you blame the late-hour sunrise and the flock of champagne you got away with the night before, and not necessarily in that order. Not hearing any sign of a presence downstairs, you figure that November has also slept in.
In the kitchen, you discover that November has already made the coffee. You call for him, but he doesn’t answer. You wonder if he’s outside, but it’s a dreary, drenched morning. You feel a breeze flow through your robe and wonder if he might have left a window open. Or the front door?
You walk to the entry to check, but the door is closed. You reach for the handle, as the door opens itself. On the other side is November—wet, messy haired and red-cheeked; his grin full and illuminating the porch.
-Ah, Snow White! he laughs, perhaps a little too hard.
As you try to think of which Dwarf name you can pull out of your un-caffeinated brain in retort, he continues.
-Marvelous morning, he says as he walks past you into the foyer.
It’s true, you haven’t always been on good terms with November, but the years have changed your perspective of him. You used to think of him as calculating, cold, harsh; self-absorbed. You believed November was greedy, doing nothing but devouring the light. But now you see how he has preserved it, buried it, as a bulb to be raised, released, ignited another day. All those years you thought he was obsessed with darkness and keeping you from the better part of an evening, you neglected to notice how he had pushed up the lever on the dimmer-switch of the stars.
In one of your smaller moments, you referred to November as “a boor and a windbag.” But maybe you have misunderstood him. Maybe you have misunderstood yourself.
One evening, you return from work to find November in the living room window seat, looking out toward the chalky horizon. As you enter the room, you expect to receive one of his charming salutations, but he doesn’t turn to look at you. You walk closer, and notice he’s wiping his eyes with the back of his hand.
You stop. Maybe he wants to be alone. You consider turning around, when he begins.
-She really is amazing.
You’re not sure who he’s talking about.
-I admire her. I do. But I have something different to say. I don’t know if I can say it the way it should be said, but I have to keep trying.
“Do you mean—”
He doesn’t look at you. You know who he means. Just yesterday, you were gushing to a friend about what October was able to do in just a few weeks. You also know what it’s like to feel as if no one might hear you, believe you, understand you. How is it possible that all these years, you failed to see what a fragile heart resides in that powerful presence?
“Listen—do you think I didn’t notice what you did with that moon last night? I literally gasped when I saw it. And last week…”
You go on. You aren’t lying—the silvery stillness of even-tempered harbors, followed by the mad, swelling rush of king tides; the final, demure blush of the maples, stubbornly clinging to the wispy branches that one day drop en masse without warning. This is not loss or the greedy taking of things; this is the artistry of reconfiguration; the re-telling of the infinite story in a poet’s divine voice.
November’s nuance unfurls in gestures of storm, prayer, solitude, gathering and release. He’s right. He’s not easily understood. Nor is anyone or anything worth getting to know.
Thank you for reading.
{| AC
O November, no flame, no ember burns…
That guy.
I really loved this, so beautifully written & evocative.