(chaque jour je reconnais l’idée d’un lendemain.)
the truth about novembers: they are not really there. they do not really exist. they have no flavour, and they do not care for sweet and spicy things.
novembers are an excuse for our memories to sway and to revel in deliberate amnesia. we go through lives scarcely remembering anything of the hours of those days. what has ever happened in cold november nights that was worth remembering? i had a hiccup once. i walked in the streets of vienna. i worked many long hours, most likely. i drank red, red wine in a bid to facilitate the arrival of so-called holiday spirits (though my favoured ones were ghostly, admittedly). many hearts were broken then—the hearts of faux captains who never learned to sail; the hearts of languid linguists prone to vertigo; the terminal hearts of animal lovers. recovered hearts were broken again. some hearts disappeared, and most hearts never returned. manifestly.
no, nothing ever quite happens in november. in november we put off for later, we postpone and we provide rain checks not out of caprice, but by reason of actual rain. we don’t gather ’round, though we probably should, as our warmth depletes in communal ways. instead we turn on many lights and forget the brightest one of all ever scorched our skin or dried the earth.
november is autumn’s last sigh when it has long decided it no longer wanted to live. it is the forgotten month between falling leaves and first snows, the scapegoat of our seasonal ailments. it is our listless abandon between heavy sheets and cushioned hips. it is a yawn with no relief. it passes through and leaves nothing behind. it is the unmistakable fog above water that wishes to freeze, and we never regret it.