November Rain (& Roses)

There are some resilient roses out West.

I had no idea roses could live this long; it’s nine months now that I’ve paid attention to their lifespan.

Do they last through the actual winter? (Wait — don’t tell me; I want to be surprised!)

Some friends asked me, moving from New York to San Francisco, if I’d miss seasons.

I miss people, but there are seasons here.

The signifiers may be more subtle and I no longer pass several Starbucks each morning with their chalk placard cues: pumpkin; gingerbread; peppermint.

But it is November; I know it in my bones — my Happy Light plugged in with the changing of the clocks earlier this month, and it stays on until the time switches back in the Spring — even out here.

It’s not the cold, I discovered, but my body craving more hours of light — wherever I am.

And the rain has also arrived.

I try to time my walks with the graying clouds to get caught in it — its clean smell hitting bramble and beach. Rain on freshly tarred roads smells the same on either coast.

Still, this long into a pandemic and time gets shuffled up.

Last night, my kids asked me to read them a Passover story.

They don’t care which holiday we are “on.”

Consistently, they reach for the longest book on the shelf. This one has the story of Passover folded into a modern tale of a girl who’s eaten too much matzah. It’s like Bread and Jam for Frances meets Exodus.

I can’t; I tell my nine-year old, I’m too tired.

“I’ll read it,” she offered.

And she did, her six-year-old brother and I both listening and falling asleep to her voice.

I woke up a few hours later, next to her, and realized the book was a fortuitous selection for this year’s Thanksgiving, with its message of Dayenu.

It would have been enough.

As I get older, being alive, making it to this moment — especially now — seems more and more miraculous each day.

Whomever, wherever, whatever we’re loving, missing, yearning — for me, this year’s holiday feels like more than a consolation, it feels like enough.

Thanks and Praise.

Grateful for the ways we are all connected.

Prayer + Action: Food Banking