It's Baaaaack

T.S Eliot famously called April the cruelest month.

I beg to differ. 

The cruelest month is most definitely November.

Let's take stock, shall we?

November has thirty miserable days; two more then my runner up of February. (Let's leave the leap years out of this for now.) Most of those days are dark, grey, drizzling, thermometer dropping, and filled with death. Hey! That's what falling leaves are, people. They're little reminders of death everywhere.

November is the month when the days are markedly shorter, and waking up and returning home in darkness is not uncommon. You hope against hope that you might see a sunrise, instead of the opening of another gloomy day.

But that is November in a nutshell.

There are no holidays in which to perk up the spirits in November; no long weekends to recharge the batteries, (I live in Canada. Thanksgiving was in October!) no glowing pumpkins nor glittering Channukiot or Christmas lights. Come to think of it, Remembrance Day is perfectly suited to November. So very much in keeping with the tenor of the month.

And how did November greet us here yesterday? With snow and blustery temperatures. So very typical. 

But for the last several years, I have found an outlet for my misery during the messiest and most melancholy of months. National Blog Post Month. It has been a way to turn these early days of Seasonal Affectedness Disorder into something productive, a way to find a spark of creativity amongst the gloom of this eleventh month.

And so, I blog. Everyday for thirty days. It is a marathon not a sprint. I will probably have some slow and weak moments and for those I apologize up front, but hopefully they will be balanced out by some posts that are zesty and provocative. Yes I am lazy, so yes a few weekly favourites will return. There will be Meatless Monday recipes for my fellow vegetarians, Almost Wordless Wednesdays when I share with you some of my preferred pictorial moments from this past year, and of course the Shabbat Music Breaks on Saturdays so that we all can enjoy a bit of rest. But mostly this month is just about me sharing a few of my thoughts with you. I encourage you to comment, both in agreement and dissent, either in the comments section below or on Facebook. It helps me to know if what I am doing is working. The whole thing is most definitely a vanity exercise, pure and simple. Please allow me to indulge.

November is the cruelest month....Sorry Mr. Eliot.