“How sad would be November if we had no knowledge of the spring.” - Edwin Way Teale
After the wonderful days of October, November is a difficult month to accept. The gold and copper turn to grey and yellow, the sun loses its warmth and the days become painfully short. It's hard to keep the little black dog from the door as the weather sours, before the hard, crisp days of winter finally come to relieve us.
The temperature doesn't bother me - I like the cold, especially after the oppressive heat of the Macedonian summer. The problem is the grey, soggy period in the middle. It's hard to explain, but the damp weather here isn't like the Welsh rain - at home, there's some texture and complexity to the clouds, and the slate tips and trees glisten after every storm. Here, the soggy weather turns the landscape into one flat, uninteresting expanse of grey - the otherwise beautiful place becomes dull. It doesn't help that Kavadarci sits in a windless valley, where the wood smoke and pollution settle like a blanket over the city, not shifting for days.
Despite the general melancholy and the soggy weather it's been a busy month, and as the workload increases I feel the usual urge to slip into a period of low motivation.
In these periods I try to focus on all the blessings in my life. As I write, I'm sitting under a thick blanket by the fire, with my lovely dogs. Celt is resting his head on my stomach, which makes it difficult to type, but very easy to plant a smooch on his silly little head. Tufi is curled at my feet, sleeping and snoring lightly. The sun is setting outside - a pink and wintery sunset, the pastel colours melting into each other through the filter of wood smoke pouring from the chimneys. My husband will be home soon. Outside, the persimmon trees have shed their leaves, and their bright orange fruit hang like baubles on the otherwise naked branches.
I've been working on a Christmassy projecy, which fills me with joy. The book won't be out until next year, but there's something whimsical about working on a Christmas project over the Christmas period. Besides that November was a month of continuation - every project was a new installment of a story or world that exsists already. Working on sequels brings me a lot of satisfaction - it's nice to be able to work with people over an extended period of time, in a career that's otherwise quite solitary.
The transitional period between autumn and winter is always full of melancholy and nostalgia, but it's also a great time to reflect and appreciate the small things, to gather with friends and try to bring some warmth to our lives. Over the weekend we hiked between Prilep and Treskavec, and the journey reflected the period somehow - despite walking into an ominous cloud at the beginning of the journey, it melted away as we approached the peak. We were treated to a beautiful view, over a sea of clouds resting over the plateau between Prilep and Krusevo, and a blue sky over the snow covered peaks of Kozijak and Solunska Glava. After the hike we descended into the city to meet with friends, and as we shared food and played pool, I was reminded again that despite the overwhelming gloom of difficult periods, they always come to an end.
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