So we have entered November, a month that suffers from a combination of poor branding and serious mishandling. A month best known for being a combo of cold, depressing and damp – in a bad way. In my opinion, November is perhaps the most misunderstood month of them all. November is like a boat on land. Apparently completely useless, but really just misplaced. On the water, it is your best friend in good times and bad. This is November. November with its silence and darkness. November, the month we treat like it’s June and then tear our hair out because we’re tired and have less energy than usual. November is a quiet month, a month with little light and a lot of night. With deep rain showers you don’t see, only hear. Rotten leaves and wet paths. A lovely month for reflection and retreat, for less activity and more peace. When you move with a black kettle and sleeping bag in the November forest, it happens completely automatically. You fall asleep earlier and sleep longer. When you finally wake up in the gray light and see the sun coming up while the coffee is simmering on the primus, then it is already well into the morning rush for those in the city. Photo: Johanne Refseth When you’re out there, no one tries to do day marches in 12 hours, no one lies down and gets annoyed that you get tired at 17, because it is completely obvious when you stand in it: November was meant for rest and reflection in long evenings by the fire. Then we come home and inside and suddenly it’s like we’ve forgotten who we’ll be in November. Instead, we expect to perform at our peak. And when it doesn’t happen, when the morning comes before we are rested, when the couch is so much more alluring than before, and when the surplus has disappeared into a black hole, then we despair. Then comes the feeling of not reaching, of not achieving. Not being happy enough, energetic enough, not achieving enough. It’s a bit like hitting yourself in the head for being wet when you’re standing in the middle of the river. Because the fact is that we don’t listen, we are too far away from the part of ourselves that resonates with the world. All nature rests, except us, and then we wonder why we are tired. What if November was the month where you were supposed to be a little melancholic? What if it was the month where you could give space to reflection, to the darker sides of life. A month of blankets, cocoa and few demands. What if it was that month where you could allow yourself that you weren’t as efficient, weren’t as good, didn’t train as much. Simply because that is what November is, a month of rest, a month of sleep, and a month with room for all the things we usually hide at the bottom of life’s bag.
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The most underrated month of the year – Expression
