Pomegranate Study

Say you walked into a room with 12 people to greet you and one is introduced as November, how would you read the individual’s persona? Heavy-lipped with furrowed eyebrows, one friend mentioned. Another said November was Leonid Brezhnev in a fisherman’s sweater. Dressed in tweed, grumpy in a cashmere scarf someone invited; How about unkempt hair and a hangover from Halloween?

Wearing Hollywood glasses and phantomlike is another guess. As in, “I’ll share a morning of tangerine sunrise complete with chickadees a chick-a-deeing,” mumbles November. “But by midday, one of my mood swings will have you clawing for your toque and mitts.” Or then again; “How about a starter of gentle April-like rain at 9 a.m: Then throw in a twist of hail on the turn-of-a-dime at half past nine.” Besides the fact it has 30 days, including Friday the 13th, I wouldn’t buy a used car from November. It is buyer beware: Expect the unexpected.

I’ve come to believe this duality of November’s personality is like Thalia and Melpomene, the Greek Muses of comedy and of tragedy. Therefore, if you scheduled the drama queen November for the therapist’s couch, I’m sure the unpredictable streak has to do with the fact that although it is considered to be the last month of autumn in our northern hemisphere, down under in the other half of the globe, November is equivalent to our May. Yes it can be confusing. In fact, my friend Jeff likes to farm in our parts, but when his birthday in November comes along he’s outta here. Believe it or not, bound for Australia, where he is ready to plant on his uncle’s farm in their spring season: Go figure. Jeff’s drive is a clue an analyst would spot; the trend for many born in the month leans toward overachievers. Although most would be happy with one good season of garden crops, Jeff has a need to go the limit. And he’s in good company. Talk about over-achievers: folks like Madam Curie, the writers Dostoevsky, Voltaire and Mark Twain. How about Winston Churchill or the artists Monet and Rodin, and even baseball’s legendary Joe DiMaggio, for gawd’s sake.

There is a list longer than the County phone book of dedications, religious days and days of celebration to be recognized as part of the coat of many colors that November wears. Here’s a few fer instances: Sweet Potato Awareness Month; Buy Nothing Day; Novel Writing Month; Movember; Geography Awareness Day and National Pomegranate Month.

But when it comes down to it, there is a part of November in all of us. The sunrise that spills over newly-shorn fields; of ochre stubble running in never-ending rows then rising onto a distant mane of crisp maples and elm and red cedar; to stand at the Ameliasburg ridge and breathe in the endless quiet fields below and to the north that narrow to the bay of Quinte before meeting up with the hard granite rise of the Canadian Shield. Or to be at Point Petre and watch over the horizon as the autumn fishermen seek out their end-of-season bounty. November’s mood carries a mix of melancholy; it is an end of passage. It signals a time of dormancy, of hibernation of ritual. When I see the smoke rise from the burning of leaves, and watch as the fields of vines are laid under cover, there is a sense of longing and poignant beauty in the air.

So November will blame its behaviour on its childhood. Way back then, when it was the last month in the earliest calendar. The month that led up to winter solstice and a renewed cycle of longer days: I mean, it being the opening act to the Night of the Dread got the month top billing. Then along came the Romans and their calendar added January and February, assigning ‘novem’, Latin for ‘nine’, to the month. Talk about a slight.

So, for all of the above notations, I figure we need to be patient and consider November’s sensitive side as it is trying to multi-task, satisfy separate halves of the globe simultaneously: not an easy task for anybody. Also try not to throw a hissy-fit like I do when I can’t remember where the woollens are stored or that I didn’t get around to fixing the draughty front door. Think of how November is here to offer a nudge to the bone-chill of winter. I am hoping that the next time you study the pomegranate as a model of the earth—like I am prone to do—you offer thanks to November. And don’t worry. Jeff just called, and it’s already tomorrow in Australia.