Greetings Dear Ones!

My life is so full of sparkles at this moment you’d think it was Prom Season. It’s not. It’s the dew in hard frost on the grass. Some of it has blown like dust when you shake a carpet and landed in the sky. The stars caught in the black blanket are so low, I see them through the tree trunks. It’s cold and dark here in the Northeast of America—a splendid time for Hunkering.

“Pay the bills and say no to the invitations!” I announce to no one in particular. It’s one of my favorite lines delivered by Rex Harrison as Henry Higgons in the movie version of “My Fair Lady.” He says it to Mrs. Pearce, the housekeeper, with an air of crisp indifference as she tries to hand him the morning post. For some reason, it has stuck with me for all these years. It’s a throwaway line, hardly significant, but to me it represents the giddy heights of the “middle class” opulence he represents. He can afford to pay his bills. He can afford to say NO to invitations. It’s the stuff movies and dreams are made of.

I try to explain November to the sheep.

“No What?” asks Prim.

“No Cookies?” worry Festus, Fern, and Fergus—the spring lambs who have just discovered the joys of stale oatcakes.

“No, sillies! November. It’s November!” I laugh.

“What’s a Vember?” they want to know.

“Well, I’m not sure what a Vember is, but an EMBER is the part of the fire you sit next to late in the evening when you knit other people presents. It’s nice and warm. It’s the end of the fire.”

“So November means the end of the fire?” they ask.

“No… I’m pretty sure November means nine, from the Latin novem, because it used to be the ninth month. Now, it’s the eleventh month, but for me, it’s the beginning of the fire season… A few sticks of wood at a time keep my little house snug and cozy. I get up and light the wood stove in the morning and I bank it and fill it for the night before I go to bed, ending my days and beginning the mornings with embers and ash.”

“Our wool keeps us snug and cozy,” says little Flora smugly. All the lambs have dense fleeces now, with what seems like extra up around their necks and cheeks.

“I know,” I say. “It keeps me warm too. I’ve been knitting your mamas’ wool from last year into beautiful shawls that keep my lap warm as I knit.”

“What happens to the fire when it turns to ash?” they want to know.

“I take the ashes out to the blueberry patch and spread them around the roots of the bushes.”

“To keep them warm?” asks Prim.

“No,” I say. “To help them grow. The wood ashes sweeten the soil and help the blueberries flourish. Every ending helps something new to grow if you use it properly.”

“Sweet soil reminds me of cookies,” says Willoughby, snuffling through my pockets.

“Sweet soil is good for blueberries and anything else that likes lime and potassium.”

“I’m using this November to Say NO to as many things as I can—except paying bills, of course. I’m saying No to all the things that do not bring me Joy (like obsessing over how those in politics are behaving) and instead trying to do small, good things each day. I’m trying to do one comforting thing and one hard thing.”

“We only like comforting things,” say all the sheep together, “like eating as much of our supper as we can and lying down and taking a nap in the rest.”

“I think I could safely say the same thing about myself and a bowl of mashed potatoes,” I admit. For weeks now, I have been digging up a day’s worth of poo-tatoes from my former manure pile, scrubbing them THOUROUGHLY, then making a comforting supper by roasting them and slathering them with butter, beans, cheese… They are the BEST!

“There are so many circles you tread,” observes Prim, who is the sharpest of the bunch. “The circle of the old ashes to the new blueberry, the cow poo to the potato…”

“You’re right!” I say. “And Circles look like the letter ‘O’—N’s O’s! Nancy’s No’s. I need to say no to a lot of things right now in order to say YES to the things that are important—like keeping these circles going.”

“We need time to rest,” says Molly, yawning. “You can’t run the circles. Maybe you could walk them.”

I agree and turn out their light.

NO-vember is a great time to slow down. Savor. Simmer. It’s an exciting time to be Casting Off. Yesterday, I cast off on two different shawls I had been accidentally knitting concurrently. I’d started one last year and misplaced it—thankfully not between the seat cushions of the couch where it could have damaged someone! The other one I have been spinning and knitting almost non-stop for the past fortnight. It “got into my head” and the only way to get it out was to put several hours a day into it. I couldn’t wait to see what it looked like.

Finishing it was such a joy! Sometimes I like a project to last a long time. It becomes a companion of sorts that I drag with me like a disgruntled spouse to places I don’t want to be—like waiting rooms, dull visits, long car journeys where someone else is driving. Other times, it’s a rush to help something twist itself into being beneath my hurrying fingers. Yesterday, I finished both sort of projects. I ended two “relationships.” There is deep Satisfaction in seeing something Completed. It’s a funny sort of drug that makes me start immediately another project whose fate is yet unknown. Will it be a quick flame? Or a slow burn? Will it get lost in the couch only to have me sit on it later?

If only we could finish all of our relationships in such neat and tidy stitches, with bound off edges and pleasing boundaries. As I slip the loops across the needles and into their final resting places, I get lost in the reverie about what it means to “Cast Off.” It has both pleasing and painful connotations.

In knitting, Casting Off is when one takes the stitches off the needle by looping each one over the next until only one loop is left. Then you draw the end of the yarn through that last loop, snug it closed, and weave that bit of yarn into the edge where no one will see it. Casting Off can be used as a falconry term—to send a bird of prey soaring. Who knows where these shawls will go and what they will see from new vantage points?

Casting Off is also the discarding of something unwanted or undesirable. It’s time to let go of the things we were trying to force into being that have not worked out. It’s ok to hunker, to comfort, to work small stitches every day to envision ourselves in new ways. No-vember is saying NO to the things to all that has temporarily defeated us. It’s time to clear out the clutter that is occupying space we need.

I had the pompous, middle-class audacity of Henry Higgons to say ‘No’ to several jobs this week and it felt amazing. One was a leather job I literally could not do. I apologized politely and told the truth. I could not put a new zipper in a pair of boots. The boot would not fit under my sewing machine and the leather was too stiff for a regular sewing needle. Another outfit contacted me and wanted me to do bulk repairs at wholesale prices—which translates kind of as “do all the things you normally do but for way less money and we’d like priority service.” No, thank you kindly. Ain’t nobody got time for that right now.

A friend asked me to make about 200 small bags for her. I said yes, made a few and then regretted it, as they were a lot more work than they first appeared. I confessed to her that I could not match the price she had been paying someone else. That other woman was probably seriously undervaluing her time, which may be why she stopped doing them… I told her I was not able to create these bags alone, in her desired time frame, within her desired budget. BUT! I was willing to work with her, collaboratively, and do them together. She agreed. So last night, her husband brought us pizza and salads and we worked together, cranking out forty completed bags and starting another forty. We developed a great system of steps and utilized each other’s native skills (I was faster at pinning and sewing; she was good at cutting and measuring.) And we had a blast! We laughed and chatted. We can’t wait to work together again.

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE how that “No” turned out.

Casting Off also means to set a boat free from its moorings to begin a new journey. I have set my shawls and myself free! We are now at liberty to drift downstream on the currents, wherever Life sweeps us to be wrapped up around projects, or shoulders, and small creatures and Jack Russells seeking warmth. Yes-es are No-s; No-s are yes-es. Ashes are sweeteners. Poo-tatoes taste Great. In the quiet, sparkling darkness, great Magic is happening.

Keep cycling and circling, collaborating and celebrating, Dear Ones! Happy No-Vember! “Pay the bills and say No to the invitations!” Go fabulously fallow for a bit and knit. Great things will come of it! Thanks for all the Mending and the Good Work you do.

With Sew Much Love,

Yours aye,

Nancy