Editor’s note: This commentary is by Walt Amses, a writer who lives in North Calais.
With November here, our immediate future will grow increasingly darker by the day; colder too. While 2019 winds down like a garage band cover of “Stairway to Heaven,” Vermont’s transition through late autumn marks a flurry of activity designed to wrestle upcoming winter to a draw. We tuck the garden away for six months; give the lawn one final buzz cut and stack endless cords of firewood. Some of us love it, some hate it, while others simply accept its inevitability: a necessity of north country life, best dealt with through stoicism.
I’ve loved the month since I was a delusional kid in Jersey, annually certain that at some point there would be snow, but there seldom was. Having professed ardor for the 11th month, full disclosure — I haven’t actually experienced November around here for the last five years. Acquaintances suggest that it’s far easier to appreciate the beginning of winter if you’re thousands of miles away, in a different hemisphere, struggling to keep your body temperature out of hyperthermia range. It’s a reasonable point.
But getting away in November hasn’t necessarily translated into getting away from November — it’s November everywhere, temperature notwithstanding. Many of the places we’ve found ourselves have their own late-autumn rituals, ceremonies and celebrations, and although Thanksgiving was once unique to us, it’s now celebrated in several other cultures around the world. Last year while most of America was gathering around the traditional turkey and Vermonters were enduring the coldest Thanksgiving in memory, I was at an open air restaurant in shorts and a T-shirt, negotiating the price of shellfish with a Vietnamese chef, astounded by the good fortune of not being immersed in winter a month before it officially arrived.
Having been indoctrinated by Catholic nuns in parochial school, we celebrated All Saints Day and All Souls Day on November first and second respectively. Most notable as a holy day of “obligation,” the latter meant no school the day after Halloween, which we blissfully took advantage of, staying out late as our parents would tolerate. It also mandated mass attendance, which we largely ignored. All Souls Day mandated praying for those who hadn’t quite made the grade and ended up in purgatory — essentially hell’s warming oven.
It was in Quito, Ecuador, several years ago that we learned that cultures around the world celebrate similar holidays in November to remember loved ones and ancestors who have passed away. The “Day of the Dead” amalgamates Catholic inspiration with indigenous traditions unique to each region of the country. Literally translated to Day of the “Deceased,” Ecuadorians spend four days — a long weekend when we were there — enjoying street theater performances; preparing special foods; and visiting the graves of their relatives, although it was anything but somber, more a celebration of life as far as we could tell. Streets were crowded to the point where we became separated for a couple of hours, each convinced the other had met an untimely demise.
In Thailand, mid-month, in 2016, hypnotically watching thousands of paper lanterns coalesce into forming what appeared to be new galaxies hovering around a blood orange “super moon,” offered an evening of solace a week after the election that continues to shake the foundations of democracy. Loy Krathong, is a festival of both light and water, in which Thai people gather near lakes, rivers and canals to pay respects to the goddess of water, releasing tens of thousands of small, lotus shaped rafts adorned with flowers, candles and incense.
The once in a lifetime experience of seeing this ritual first hand was an incredible opportunity … actually, I should say “would have been” an incredible opportunity, were we able to see it. We did experience it in a way. After explaining to our tuk tuk driver where we wanted to go, he was determined to deliver us. I should also mention that the operators of these three-wheeled contraptions are required to be either suicidal or homicidal, preferably both. Our dude fit the bill entirely, whisking us off a Chang Mai street corner and promptly (very promptly) ejected us into a crowd we learned later was in the hundreds of thousands, theoretically adjacent to the Ping River.
It was probably the most polite, orderly and amiable group that size we’d ever seen. Wall to wall humanity patiently making its way toward the shoreline, as almost one organism, carrying small floral offerings through clouds of fragrant incense. After wandering through the throng for over an hour, the river still mainly a rumor at this point, we were feeling like we were at a Grateful Dead show and couldn’t find the stage just as the psilocybin was kicking in. Time to bail. We finally – after another hour or so – found the edge of the crowd and walked for a while, eventually breaking our vow never to get into another tuk tuk when one pulled finally alongside, offering rescue.
I’m back in Vermont this year, anticipating November in many of the same ways I always have while enjoying the post-peak foliage of fallen leaves and the darker colors provided by oaks and beeches, seeming to hold their leaves just a little longer. I wonder when it will snow and how much we’ll get. Will it be THE snow cover for the winter? Will the wood pile or my lower back surrender first? And of course, as a non-meat-eater, that fourth Thursday’s options are always problematic: Tofurkey or fauxturkey?
It’s good to be home.
