“Giving is a great prayer.”
Elena Brower, “Tenses: six,” Softening Time
By: Gabriela Yareliz
My husband and I live in a pre-war apartment, which means we have a hot pipe that runs through the bathroom that now glows with heat. I walked past it this morning, and felt the warmth radiating from below the chipped paint.
The radiator is on and the eye mask is too. Despite the flowing warmth, the wooden floor feels icy. I find November to be one of the coldest months. I have memories of one of my closest friends visiting me around Veterans Day, and that, my friends, was the coldest week of all. We were running in and out of shops and cafes on the Upper East Side (UES) for shelter from the cutting ice wind.
It’s always giving season, in my opinion, but we enter a season that is hyper focused on it. November is shopping and donating season. It’s a season of gratitude, abundance and generosity. This is a time that, for me, is filled with gift brainstorming and gathering Christmas and New Years gifts, little by little, to avoid the overwhelm and December frenzy and stealing of packages. I start hiding things and forgetting where I hid them like a squirrel. I start making my repeated visits to the post office.
They call December sparkle season, but November is not far behind. It’s a season where the nights are darker, but the glitz and glimmer of NYC starts to shine through. Columbus Circle gets decorated, ice skating rinks fill up, UES looks like a scene from a storybook (or it did) and Upper West Side gives itself to the magic of The Nutcracker.
One of the magical Holiday Markets (Bryant Park) is up, and the rest will be constructed this month.
This week, we had a rain deluge and a windstorm. Flooding and wind that made 52F feel like 36F blasted through NYC streets that turn into wind tunnels.
My umbrella was useless as I was literally clinging to street signs to not blow away (thank you, brutal city wind for making me feel light and dainty again). My jacket, I soon discovered, felt a little too thin for the frigid blasts, I realized as I walked down a familiar block to see if our favorite Chinese bakery had reopened from their 1+ month break. It’s time to bring out the other jackets and layers.
I would be lying if I didn’t admit sugar plums are already floating through my head. Yesterday, I got some much needed deep cleaning and reorganizing done. A sigh of relief. I lit a cozy candle, caught up with my mom, and flipped through my new cookbooks (my new favorite pastime) as I waited for the towels to dry downstairs.
I keep checking the Love Shack Fancy page to see if that menorah I want is back. The feeling of Christmas is in the air.
As we creep closer to Christmas, November is for long bundled up walks, candles in the darkness and no overhead lighting, warm teas and lattes to warm the spirit in the mornings and evenings, soupy lunches, butter melting on warm bread.
It’s a cozy season of comfort and scouting. Time to hit up Bleeker Street in the evenings to look into the shop windows and find the perfect gift that reminds a loved one that they are loved and known.
Despite the cold— November invites us to balance the wandering outside with the shelter and cozy we find inside. It teaches us to stay in movement (there is a lot to do, see and plan), but also to come inwards and nourish. What are your November plans?
GABRIELA YARELIZ 