November ����
Exulansis The tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it. – The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows To my Northern friends: I regret I can no longer speak with authority about winter. I’ve forgotten the feeling of ears ringing with the silence of fresh snowfall, air so cold it stabs the lungs. Gone are those Norse names, the rough wool, heavy boots, bodies bent against wind so fierce there must be a name for it in Lakota. I can’t recall how despair closes in, a cloud blanket for days, dense, ominous. Remind me how, in a whiteout, a person can get lost between car and house. Tell me about children in mufflers waiting for the school bus in handmade huts, the shush of skis down slushy streets. Didn’t we find Easter eggs nested on the icy crust? I do remember that just when you vow to never shovel another drive, the bright flags of daffodils flare.
— Debra Kaufman
Debra Kaufman’s most recent book is God Shattered
The Art & Soul of the Sandhills
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