Slate Gray Silence

 In the course of my life, I have always liked Novembers.  I thought of that today as I was driving to school.  This drive, along the river, is always picturesque.  It’s a winding road, and it is beautiful.  Today I saw the trees as they are after the leaves and before the snow, and could suddenly tell that the look of the sunrise had changed.  And then I felt again that it really was about time for November. 

It seems odd to like November so much when we live in a world full of Mays and Augusts and Septembers.  But November is rich like none other.  It feels silent and set apart....before the explosion of festive things in December and the bleak midwinter that follows.  It’s a hibernation, nestled between the brilliance of fall and the intensity of a storms in winter.  Every year in November, I think of Robert Frost poems.  And when I look out the window and see the gray sky, I am not depressed.   Not at all.

Instead, I feel steady again, like the bracing winds can tell me why some things are the way they are.  And I know all of this on the page sounds overly sentimental, because in the end, the sky really is slate gray half of the time.  But I still say it’s a very nice thing.

Today, on the first day of this new month, I was very busy at school.  There were meetings and a million papers to grade, conversations to have with students, bells to announce a new hour…all usual things by now.  A few of my friends at school made me laugh really hard.  And a few students did too.  And that is the good stuff of life. 

It is now the time in the year when I get comfortable with my classes.  They feel it too.  The things we’ve built for two months…diligently and directly…hold a little more.  You can look up from the desk and give just one look, and things go back to the way they should be going.  In September and October, you have to keep someone after the bell in order to get the same reaction.  It is worthwhile, but it is tiring. 

In addition to things just working, students seem to be awake.  Or more confident.  Or both.  I was astonished by the discussion 7^th graders were having in my classroom today about the Black Death and the decline of feudalism in Western Europe.  It was, in a word, brilliant.  Like none other I’ve seen in my career so far.  And that’s them, not me.  I just organized them and crafted a picture of the world in 1348. And then I sat back to listen, and the things I heard, said back to me, were exceptional.   They got the who and the why and the how.  The saw that the abstract could be funny.  They GOT history. 

It was wonderful.

And then, aside from life at a job, with all of its duties and intensities, there were these good things and good people all around me.  When I wasn’t the teacher anymore.  I had dinners at friends’ houses, held their little babies, reminisced about old memories, drank coffee with some, talked on the phone with others. Some close, some far away. I talked with my parents about big things and also silly things.    

I also thought about the things God has put in front of me right now.  The things He has for me later.  The kind of life I have already seen.  From this view, away from the hard things, or the details of a Thursday, I conclude that life continues to be very good.  I am grateful.

Happiest of Novembers to you and yours.