Everything I Loved in November
A life-changing documentary, a gift guide, and my favorite encouragement
Hi my darling Blueberries, and happy December to you!
I meant to compile this earlier, but had an unfortunate run-in with a vegetable peeler and haven’t been able to type! I would write it all out by hand with a ball-point pen and send it in the mail if I had all your addresses.
But ALAS!
Here we are, just a few days past a marvel-filled month.
I have so much affection for November (the Thursday of months) and this particular one was extra plump, much like the cute sugar pumpkins that sit atop various surfaces of my apartment.
One springtime, many years ago, I took a yoga class from an eccentric older man who flung the windows open that morning to let in the “electric air,” because it felt like “One of those great November Saturdays—sunny and full of energy.”
I thought about that description a lot the past few weeks: while volunteer dog walking through the twists and turns of a park, while fluttering through a quietly bustling farmer’s market, and while savoring an afternoon walk home as the sun cast a rose glow over my neighborhood and all its little windows begun illuminating for the evening.
Absolute heaven for a sadgirl, and full of energy.
Right before the election, I went on a meditative walk through my favorite oasis in all of New York: the Prospect Park Zoo.
In an effort to make amends for its ghastly history as a train zoo made of small cars showcasing bears, lions, elephants, and other majestic beings, I like describing it now as a woke zoo with ducks and squirrels and other little souls who aren’t particularly glamorous but appear happy to scurry around under observation.
Because of the lack of exotic critters, there’s never anyone there, and I find it soooo relaxing to slowly walk through a peaceful natural space and stop to just watch a porcupine sleep for a while, or gaze at a miniature deer chomping on a tuft of grass.
It’s grounding to witness how little an emu cares about what’s happening in Person World, and to get a peek into the top priorities of a red panda—which are nothing like mine, but should be. I always emerge from that place taking bigger breaths and more connected to real life.
I felt particularly connected to LIFE this month, which is most certainly related to how much art I consumed related to death.
While I identify as death-positive (directly correlated to being so life-positive!!!), it’s still not exactly a delightful topic to think about.
This time of year in all its brightness and aliveness brings me a bodily sensation of sinking sideways—hyper-aware of loss and sorrow and stockings lining the walls of the hospice and…yuck. My heart starts cowering a little the moment I start hearing Christmas music.
However, while the life-death veil is thin, I’m sensitive to the beauty of that constant teeter-totter, and have loved learning more about it this month…
LIFE-GIVING WORK ABOUT DEATH
The Remarkable Life of Ibelin
I don’t know about you, but Netflix bullies me into watching certain series and movies.
Most of the time I ignore it, and some of the time I’m insulted. Do you robot screen really think I’m the type of person who would want to binge that….?
But, sometimes, that sentence ends with “and you’re EXACTLY right.”
In the case of Ibelin, I don’t recall what compelled me to give in—I have negative 100% interest in video games and was scared of the World of Warcraft graphics that seemed to dominate a large part of the film.
But I do know what made me stick around past the opening credits: I couldn’t stop watching this family discover their nonverbal son’s intricate, exciting, generous world—only after he died.
Ibelin’s family knew him as Mats, but Mats was “Ibelin” to his World of Warcraft community, where he spent 12-14 hours a day from his wheelchair, to the sorrow of his parents who wished they could offer more for their son dying of a degenerative disorder.
I would love to tell you every single detail about this extraordinary documentary, but I’m just going to bully you into watching it instead. Hope it works!
I must admit that I’m judgmental of video game enthusiasts, probably for all the stereotypical reasons you can imagine, but my soul softened as the film summarized 42,000 pages of gaming dialogue that Ibelin left behind.
Just like any art, so I learned, video games serve as a form of expression— often for people who don’t express in many other ways. Ibelin is the perfect example of a brilliant, complex, very loving man whose life was sustained and perhaps saved by a video game—and who saved so many other real people in the process.
Thus, I have lifted my judgment and changed my mind. Good job, movie.
Briefly, Beautifully Human
Because I’m on the mailing list for Here to Honor’s “Minding Our Mortality” newsletter, I heard about this vibrant memoir by a life-savoring death doula Alua Arthur (whose Instagram handle is, adorably, @alualoveslife).
I confess to skipping a lot of her personal story in search of her first-hand experiences with death and how she’s come to appreciate a human’s greatest journey into the unknown.
Her insights helped me integrate death into my own slippery existence, and for that reason the book became the type that I actually hug when it’s over.
After reading, I looked into Alua Arthur’s organization, Going with Grace, which provides so many of the practical tools I wish I’d had while watching loved ones die. I will absolutely be purchasing End of Life Planning Made Simple in the new year.
I used to religiously listen to the podcast “Gilmore Guys” hosted by two very funny men dissecting every Gilmore Girls episode, and I’ll never forget their discussion about an episode about Rory’s grandmother’s funeral.
The episode comically followed both of the Girls frantically running around, arguing about whether Grandma should be buried in underwear, quickly making arrangements, and delegating some of the zillions of bizarre tasks to strangers.
One of the said Gilmore Guys expressed skepticism about the episode: “Wouldn’t they be too busy grieving to think about all this stuff?”
OH, I instantly realized, he’s never lost anyone close to him. Because this is EXACTLY what it’s like when a loved one dies: absolute chaos, so much bureaucracy, a billion phone calls, no time to even hear yourself think—much less begin to mourn.
I really appreciate that Going with Grace makes all those crazy chores a smidgen easier—or at least less overwhelming.
SUMPTUOUS MUSIC
Kendrick Lamar
In my Northern Hemisphere, cold-and-dark version of November, music sounds so much more luscious all of a sudden. I seek, hoard, and bury lyrics internally like a squirrel scavenging for nuts to last through the winter. I hear notes more vividly—as though I can see and touch them. I lap up songs like the last bits of thick hot chocolate.
In November, my tastes abruptly swivel from the amusing pop of summer and the gentle folk of fall, to something more…intense.
Industrial. Skeletal. Spooky. Melodramatic. Crazy.
I’m talking: Any album that can replicate what I experienced during November of 2010 when My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy came out and every millennial lost their goddamn mind.
It was my last month in Chicago—overripe and spiritual—and that album will always look like orange streetlights and feel like bitter cold mixed with the raw-nerve-pangs of closing the chapter that was my burning-hot-glowing early 20s.
Thus, I re-listen every year, but I’d so much rather NOT listen to that ass-butt…and find all that intense throbbing feeling somewhere else.
This year, Kendrick Lamar has swooped in to save all our Novembers.
I have been loving GNX like nobody’s business for the past two weeks, to the point where I’ve been saying things like, “Wow, the power of music, right??” to strangers. But who can blame me! If goosebumps were an album, this is it.
Specifically, I have been an absolute DORK walking the dog while listening to “squabble up,” which Tom Breihan describes as “slap-blap trunk-rattle thunder and Latin-freestyle roller-disco energy.”
Uh, yeah, that!
When I put on that song while strutting down the street (especially in my leopard print coat), I feel like I could pick up cars and smash them down, a la King Kong. I’m the tallest I’ve ever been. Nobody can tell me a single thing.
And I feel electric with emotion, juicy with feeling, and overflowing with aliveness—just as I did (checks calendar) 14 years ago at this time.
My Golden Age of Broadway
Ever since I saw the Wicked movie, I’ve been revisiting the sumptuous, unapologetically earnest musicals of the late 1990s/early 2000s, back when my queen Rosie O’Donnell would regularly feature big Broadway numbers on her show—which I sprinted home from school to tape on VHS.
(No, I didn’t have friends!! Get over it!)
I was not a Wicked fan, but rather an Avenue Q girlie—a distinction that has divided musical theatre enthusiasts for years following Avenue Q’s shocking win at the 2004 Tony Awards.
You didn’t need to know all that.
What you need to know is that Avenue Q still holds up, as does this song which got me through every awful job between ages 17-31, several quarter life crises, and two Bush administrations (which seem rather tame in comparison to, hmm…but I digress).
I’ve heard so many people grumble, “I can’t stand musicals—people just break into song!” And to that I say: Sometimes there is simply no other way to express yourself!
Like, DO YOU KNOW HOW ART WORKS???
Sometimes people break into sculpting a statue! Sometimes people break into creating an oil painting! Sometimes people break into a hip hop routine, or a triple axel, or a drum solo, or a crocheted Snoopy head!
Instead of wondering why someone would possibly want to sing at this moment, I warmly invite you to wonder right along with the singer, who is engaging in the ultimate human act: wondering, through personal expression.
As a brief, sumptuous aside: I’m listening to this playlist right now, which is evocative enough for writing, but chilled-out enough for working.
COMFORT FOOD
Up North, November is the official month of comfort food (I declared just now), and I have loved spending these mystical early nights (5pm) creating potions—fire burn and cauldron bubble—for a hearty, opulent dinner.
In the winter, I simply cannot spiritually STAND a meal where salad takes center-stage, nor can I handle a thin soup that is not accompanied by a gargantuan loaf of sourdough absolutely dripping with butter.
NOT. GOING. TO. HAPPEN.
So, I’ve been channeling my inner Strega Nona creating lots of indulgent pots of delectable repasts, like:
Tortellini Stew
I bought a bunch of filled pastas from Kite Hill, which I added to a stew base of: (Layer 1) onions, garlic, tomato paste, seasoning, (Layer 2), kale, carrots, tomato sauce, potato chunks), and (Layer 3) vegetable broth and coconut milk.
Let it reduce for a long time until your soup ladle is alllllll good stuff and your bowl becomes a brothy pasta with lots of goodies. DELICIOUS!
Embellish your creation with SO MUCH CHEESE (I’m partial to this guy) and you are SET for a night of reality/true crime/dramatic TV.
For extra credit, reduce the stew even FURTHER and make it into a sauce—whoa! I add Gardein meatballs which are my favorite meatballs, plant-based or otherwise, and have myself a feast!
The BEST mac and cheese OMG
My Novembers will never be the same after discovering this most outstanding cheesy sauce recipe:
Boil a bunch of potatoes and a few carrots. Then blend them with the water you boiled them in. Then add lots of seasoning: salt and pepper, onion powder, garlic powder, chili if you’re into that, maybe some sage and oregano (who knows), and then I HIGHLY recommend a very heavy dash (or seven) of nutritional yeast.
(OKAY FINE, if you want a traditional recipe, here it is.)
And…OH. MY. STARS.
This is the creamiest, most flavorful, wonderfulest sauce ever ever EVER—even for people like me who are phobic of “fake cheese,” yikes. It is SO good.
AND, it’s even better when it’s mixed in with the right pasta.
You heard me.
I used to think all dried pastas were the same?? Nuh-uh, nope, there is a huge difference between them!
After literal decades of searching, my dried pasta of choice now (and forever) is Flour + Water from the iconic San Francisco restaurant, whose pasta actually has a distinct texture and flavor and color that makes you feel like you’re creating a meal, an experience!!!—rather than sad spaghetti from a box.
I have been looooving their impeccable campanelle which has such a satisfyingly rough texture and heft, oh and regenerative farming practices!!!
It’s SO fun when you can incorporate a high-quality staple into your trashy weekday meals (wouldn’t know anything about this!).
I sauté a bunch of dinosaur kale as a crunchy base for my cheesy pasta and the sight of it makes me do a Winnie the Pooh happy wiggle before eating.
THINGS TO BUY FOR OTHERS
I am blessed with the world’s best therapist, and one big theme of our year together has been discerning what belongs to me and what belongs to others.
Due to the delicious combo of OCD and Christian messaging, I already feel like I’m at a deficit for simply having entered the world; any generous act or “good deed” is insufficient toward the debt I should pay for merely existing.
Whenever I pass anyone who is asking for money, I either give them cash if I have it, or offer to buy them something; I regard those actions that as the bare minimum. A week ago, I experienced a very rare exploitation of this impulse, and, with my therapist, we concluded that there was no ME in that interaction.
As my friend Dave wrote recently, our gifts to make the world a better place are sometimes so natural to us that we don’t even realize they are gifts. There’s no strain involved, no sacrifice!
Since that particular interaction felt like a strain and a sacrifice and ultimately a lose-lose, I acknowledged that it wasn’t an aligned use of my gifts.
Moving on, I adopted a family via Operation Santa and then sent some goodies to a home for seniors affected by this season’s hurricanes, and I had a blast and a half doing it!
Choosing gifts is my only fluent love language, and I had TOO MUCH FUN finding presents for a horse rescuer, a beginning gardener, a hummingbird lover, seniors who could use some new pajamas and games, and a guy who wanted reflectors for his bike. JOY!
I sent those gifts with special wrapping paper that I ordered specifically for their interests, and threw in some extra treats because nothing makes me happier than spoiling people in my life—even if they come into my life via an Amazon wish list or letter.
It was exciting to get good deals for those folks on Black Friday, and absolutely thrilling to send the packages off!