It is late November 2007. It is also Thanksgiving, but that doesn’t matter, not this year. Usually on thanksgiving I would sit down and make a list of the most profound things in my life and think of how thankful and lucky I was to have said things. That is not the case this year. While I did give some thought towards what I am thankful for, I didn’t come up with much. Now I don’t want to give the wrong impression, I am a very thankful person, but my mind is elsewhere; so today it is just late November.
I make the decision to go out for a walk. This is an odd occurrence because I am fairly lazy and do not respond well to the cold. However, today I cant think of anything I’d rather do, so I bundle myself up in two sweatshirts, a jacket, long socks, and boots, and I head out into the cold. I do not have a destination. This seems to be a common theme in my life. When I do venture out, my usual route is to walk down the street a bit and across the footbridge. Across the footbridge is a nice little neighborhood where I do not know anyone. This is precisely the reason that I like this particular neighborhood: I am anonymous. Today though, I decide to go across the street and through the field. I think I chose this route because the snow is fresh on this field and I love the feeling of the snow crunching beneath my feet, however, I cannot be sure. I can never be sure of my own reasoning, probably because I don’t generally use much.
Within five minutes my hands grow cold and I shove them into my pockets, which does not help much. I find my ipod in the right pocket and I decide to listen to it, but as I search my music library for something to listen to, nothing sounds half as appealing as the dead quiet that currently surrounds me. I resolve to put it on shuffle. Secret Song by Alanis Morissette starts playing, I love this song; it is probably one of my all time favorite songs so far. Listening to Alanis’ voice in this song you can just feel her emotions, and she is feeling them with all she’s got. I think Secret Song is the best track she has ever written. That said I turn the ipod off halfway through. I am not exactly sure why, but I choose to leave the headphones in my ears. I think I may be the oddest person I know.
When I come to the end of the field I turn right and head more towards town. I know where I am going now. This path is familiar; as about a year ago it was the path I walked everyday to see you. Sometimes I debate with myself about whether it was a waste of time to spend every day of those eight months plus with you. I never win.
I do not know what made me (unconsciously) decide to walk this path now, months have passed since I’ve even thought of you and nothing in my life has changed that may have caused this pattern to discontinue. I continue to walk, however, and the silence is reassuring, almost as if November wants me to spend today like this. I have recently come to the decision that months have personalities, and the more I entertain this thought the more certain I am that it is true. October is the kind and gentle, May is bitter and mean, and November is lonely. It is November’s forlorn thoughts that are leading me to you.
Suddenly, or so it seems, I am less than fifty feet from your house. I feel as though the walk was unusually short, although it probably actually took around forty minutes to walk those last four blocks. I am standing in a puddle of melted snow which is soaking though my boots to my feet as I stand gazing at your home, but something inside me will not allow me to go any further. I look towards the light shining from your upstairs bedroom, muffled by the plain curtain you hung there. This is the only light on in the house, and I almost feel as if I am invading your privacy by knowing this. A chill runs up my spine and I think of how in another time I would have called you and we would have taken a November walk together, how in another time I would have had the courage to stand closer to you than fifty feet. I wish I could stop time and stand here forever, with only my thoughts as a barrier between us. I wish you knew I was standing here.
As it is, time moves as people change, both are incessant. You and I do not understand each other anymore, and I wonder if I am even still a thought in your mind.
I shrug my neck deeper into the warmth of my coat, turn around, and head home.
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Submission Name: novermber 22, 2007
