It's November, time to give thanks

November's arrival begins this year's celebration of National Native American Heritage Month. Today's event is New perspectives on Native American history, cultures, and contemporary lives. (FYI: We found that the preceding site links are sensitive to browsers and ad blockers.) It's also the month when we celebrate Thanksgiving. To help the convergence of new perspectives and November, we'd like to strongly suggest you get your hands on a copy of the National Geographic's book, 1621 A New Look at Thanksgiving (Public Library), and read it this month. As we've mentioned elsewhere in this blog, we used to live several miles up the road from the reconstruction of Plimouth Plantation, so the book's message and pictures take us close to home.

these guys can be grateful they didn't end up someone's dinner

Photo by J. Harrington

On a directly related theme, this might also be a wonderful month to start a gratitude journal as an individual or family activity. Some much of the advertising and social media we're exposed to is either negative or stresses what's wrong or what's missing from our lives (and where to buy and how to consume what we need to be happy) that too many of us fail too often to appreciate what we already have. [Don't forget to vote on or before November 6, to help continue the democracy we've enjoyed for hundreds of years.]

Winter chickadee

Photo by J. Harrington

Since we are rapidly approaching the Winter months, we'll note that we are particularly grateful for chickadees. Of neighborhood chickadees, we have: multitudes; hosts; hordes; legions; choirs; crowds; swarms, throngs. Rarely are there fewer than two at a feeder. As often there are three or four and as soon as one empties a perch, s/he's replaced by another. Good thing we like chickadees. Their songs are cheerful. The way they fly and perch makes them seem happy and chipper. Their company during the weeks of cold and snow often perks us up and helps us snap out of incipient cabin fever. Surely, if such a small spark of life can celebrate a Winter's day with a "Dee-Dee-Dee" we can find something good about it, right?

November

By Maggie Dietz

Show's over, folks. And didn't October do

A bang-up job? Crisp breezes, full-throated cries

Of migrating geese, low-floating coral moon.

Nothing left but fool's gold in the trees.

Did I love it enough, the full-throttle foliage,

While it lasted? Was I dazzled? The bees

Have up and quit their last-ditch flights of forage

And gone to shiver in their winter clusters.

Field mice hit the barns, big squirrels gorge

On busted chestnuts. A sky like hardened plaster

Hovers. The pasty river, its next of kin,

Coughs up reed grass fat as feather dusters.

Even the swarms of kids have given in

To winter's big excuse, boxed-in allure:

TVs ricochet light behind pulled curtains.

The days throw up a closed sign around four.

The hapless customer who'd wanted something

Arrives to find lights out, a bolted door.

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