(Sunday, November 1)

It was the poet T.S. Eliot who called April the cruelest month — “breeding lilacs out of the dead land ... mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain.”

I think he was wrong.

I think November is the cruelest month — stealing light from the early morn, bringing dusk too soon, freezing dead roots with deepening frost.

February is a close second; April I can live with.

Today is the first day of November, and so the cruelest month begins.

The poet Thomas Hood probably said it best with his bleak view — “No fruit, no flowers, no leaves, no birds ... November!”

I have always felt this way about November.

Perhaps I suffer from SADs — or Seasonal Affective Disorder — which is also known as winter depression or the winter blues, and all which begins with the long dark days of November.
Perhaps I need sun to keep me sunny.

It is a long haul from here. Unless summers — true summers — are gone forever, we will not feel the warmth of truly warm summer sun for at least eight months.

The fall was nice, for a time, but the fall is now gone. This is not autumn, although the calendar says it is. This is the prelude to winter.

There is, in fact, only one good thing to say about November. It is only 30 days long.

Too bad it could not be like February.