It’s November. Like the cold air that worked its way into my being yesterday, I feel like it sped in fully every bit as convincing as the leaves turned when October danced its way in. November brings this critical Election Day—and all the disappointments and needs and hope entailed. Along with its chill, November brings holidays—and all the disappointments and needs and hope entailed.
I turned from one month to the next by wrapping up a pile’s worth of deadlines and placing attentions to loose ends and small projects and piles of clutter (and a parent-teacher conference with the fourth grade teacher: we all think the fourth grader is fantastic). I turned from one month to the next with the realization that I am exhausted.
So it goes.
For Halloween, I had a gymnastic gu-url, while the fourth grader was some sort of disappearing twin with his pal and they had a blast at the friend’s (mini-empty Halloween nest), the next up went to the annual open house at his godmother’s and the elder teen and one of his BFF’s did a stint as the contents of Romney’s binder with another friend and the small gymnastics gu-url. As one section of the blogosphere might say, the pink boy returned (only… hmm, not exactly).
The downtown businesses do a very family-friendly trick-or-treat romp in the afternoon. It’s like a big dose of cuteness, from the babies as lions and elephants and such to many of those earnest dress-up parents (I’m not a dress-up parent). I mostly just got to love on my town.
Our evening ended with teenagers, plural, and small girl singular watching Beetlejuice. Had it been a weekend, I might have let her conk out amongst them. I loved on my preschool the next morning when my gal’s teacher greeted her with the word: “Beetlejuice!”
Because I’m tired and scattered, I feel compelled to tell you that this particular friendship between the eldest and his pal Rozi reminds me so of mine with one of my high school BFF’s Ben. His family’s beloved summer haven Mantoloking, NJ, was engulfed by the storm—and so I’ve been thinking extra hard about him this week. Those November winds swirl in ways to fold the past and the present, the fear and the hope, and the love and the harder places together.
