The big hoorah of Thanksgiving is over for most us. Nothing left but a few last straggling dinners, the leftovers in the fridge, and those gifts we didn’t manage to purchase on Black Friday. I find that once I’m not thinking about the green bean casserole I’m slated to make or the pumpkin pie I’m slated to eat . . . I actually have more time to think about thankfulness. I’m thankful for . . . well, things that might sound silly if they were stated around a candle-lit dining table. Just now I’m thankful for my fleecy robe, my mug of coffee (even though it has gone lukewarm). I’m thankful for profound things, too. I’m thankful for my loving husband. For my sons and nephew still sprawled out and sleeping on couches and pallets on the living room floor. Thankful for warmth and safety . . . as well as for those quirky little blessings that wouldn’t necessarily get everyone else going: my upstairs bedroom, a desk in front of the window where I can look down on the neighborhood (in a loving way, a loving way!) and watch this soggy, cold November day take shape.
I’m even thankful for November. Not as pink and pretty as April, crisp and golden as September . . . but I always kind of like the cozy-melancholy of it. I like the mists, the wood smoke, the semi-frozen ground and expired grasses. The elegant forlorn-ness of bare tree branches reaching into pale skies. And though it’s not ‘the time’ for woodland hikes, it makes me want to take one, to wade into sodden leaves and thoroughly immerse myself in the day. You know. To know . . . just exactly what kind of day this is . . . in the natural sense. Not the day I sent that email, or that day I mopped that floor, but what kind of day it was . . . outside of myself and all these constructs people have made.
And, though I’ve never heard anyone say it, to me, days (at least in their natural sense) are like snowflakes or pieces of popcorn. Each has a similar shape yet no two seem to be exactly alike. It is as if days . . . have personalities. “What kind of day is this?” I wonder, glancing out the window early in the morning. It’s like standing in a library, pulling a book from the shelf and asking, “What kind of story is this?” A sad and melancholy one? A chilling ghost story? A tale of true love? A funny story of friendship? A saga of adventure? Survival? Courage? Taking even just a little time to get to know the timbre of the day leaves me feeling creative and inspired.
All seasons are like this. Yes, there some are better for walks in the woods than others. . . but each has days that beckon to me simply by having a certain . . . nuance. The shady alcoves in the woods when summer has reached its full green-ness. The mystery of that, sort of fecund—fertile and romantic—the damp of it, the smells, the hum of bees and dragonflies. Even the danger of it: Was that poison ivy? A snake! A wasp!
When I was a child, I liked to write about “the beauty of nature.” But now I know nature is not just . . . pretty for pretty’s sake. I think few things are. There is something more to “the beauty of nature”—each day has its own nature, its own function, its own way to intrigue and inspire.
If you think about it, days are kind of like people that way.
Be inspired and inspiring today.
The Lyrical Realist 