November mornings are good times to cuddle up to a cup of hot sweet Chai.  It warms up the innards and spices up the brain.  It makes you radiate sunshine even when it is dark as night out.  I’m glowing like Sheba’s ball.

I have discovered November is not the time to read serious, thought provoking short stories or books, no matter how much I admire the authors.  I’m putting away Alice Walker, Alice Munro and Carol Joyce Oates for more appropriate times.  They take me down dark rabbit holes.  Sunshine is what I crave.

Joy Fielding’s The First Time is what I am reading.  It is not a happy story.  It is a story of a woman in an unhappy marriage.  In the middle of all this, she discovers she has ALS. There is nothing happy about any of this and yet it does not take me to the dark place.  The book has been sitting on my book shelf for a long time – waiting for me, for the right time. There are treasures among my clutter.

It’s a restful read for a person who is restless and doesn’t know how to rest.  It takes me out of myself, out of my thoughts into the life of Mattie.  How does she cope with all her problems?  How does she cope with her diagnosis?  How does she cope with dying?  I am able to sit, read and live her days.  I can drop my nagging needling thoughts.  I’m learning to rest, to let go and be. My compulsions to control and for perfection are relaxed for awhile.

November is the time to cast aside my doubts, live and write freely and with heart.  I focus my attention to that one inch picture frame of Anne Lamott’s.  For this moment, I need only to pay attention to what I can see through that.  It’s a beautiful way to look at life – one picture frame at a time.  It’s living in the moment.  That’s all we can do.  Yesterday is gone and tomorrow is yet to come.  To live in regret for yesterday and yearning for the future is foolish and wasteful. WASTE NOT, WANT NOT is what I need to remind myself often.

November is the time to do all the things that make me feel good –  warm baths, hot soups, baguettes, hot chocolate, cookies, champagne.  It is a good time to romance my body and soul.