BY HARRY WEEKES
I am writing this on this side of the snow Rubicon, on one of those impossibly beautiful, yet wonderfully common, November days. The climatic porridge is just right (neither too cold nor too hot), the clouds in the sky are low and thin in the south, as much decoration as anything, and there is a feeling that winter may never come. It is blue and still and the sun is working its radiant magic.
It feels like these days will last forever.
Which, of course, they won’t.
In fact, there is a good chance that by the time you read this, there will already be snow on the ground, and winter will have arrived (even though it won’t officially do so until December 21).
But something has already been happening, something so gradual we tend to miss it. Much of the natural world has been slowly going to sleep, or otherwise preparing for the long nap of winter. Yes, there are many creatures great and small that simply add a layer of fat, or more fur, or increase the lipids in their cell membranes (oh, mysterious trees) and stick around for the winter. Everything else does what they can to get cozy or get out.
The great suite of birds has made a consistent exit, with those remaining apparently confined to three categories: ducks (from the heavy-bodied geese to the fast-flying teal), twitterers (the ones that sound and look like dried leaves come to life), and magpies (stoic, reliable magpies).
Aspens and willows and cottonwoods, our major deciduous trees, have been changing colors and dropping leaves, gradually drawing into themselves, preparing to do what they have to do—stay in exactly the same place and weather whatever comes their way.
The ground squirrels left so early we forget they were even around. They’ve been tucked underground since September, munching grass, jostling in burrows, and otherwise living a subterranean existence.
November always feels like “getting ready” to me. Even as I am drawn out to enjoy the amazing days, I am also aware that each week the world grows increasingly quiet. Fewer and fewer things flush and hop and rustle. The cast of characters that does remain are obvious vestiges on their way out (like the errant late-season grasshopper that shows up in the garage).
There is something else in this growing scarcity, though, that is a mixture of anticipation, for those winter beasts that will soon arrive, a longing for a distant spring, and an excitement for what I do see (for instance, a frantic, “Did you see that?!” as a mouse scurries across the road through my car’s headlights).
Ultimately, I guess, this amounts to an appreciation of the rhythm itself. Of being aware that we are in a certain part of the great cycle of the year. The day is ending. We are getting ready for bed. Soon, we will pull up the great snowy covers of winter, invite in another season, and remember a world of quiet survival.
Harry Weekes is the founder and head of school at The Sage School in Hailey. This is his 48th year in the Wood River Valley, where he lives with Hilary and two of their three baby adults—Penelope and Simon. The other member of the flock, Georgia, is currently fledging at Davidson College in North Carolina.