Magical November Nights

The world is so quiet, on a Sunday night before Thanksgiving. The full moon peeks out behind racing clouds, coy as a scarf dancer allowing only a glimpse of herself to be seen before the filmy fabric of clouds is whisked back in front of her. It’s so warm the trees think it’s spring; buds adorn the tips of branches that still haven’t lost this year’s leaves. They stand out against the back sky like so many little candles, lit by the orange glow of the streetlight. I sit cross-legged on the concrete, dead leaves at my feet, marveling at trees whose leaves are still green—and gold—and red—awed that branches which should be naked are instead bedecked with the hope of spring.

A gentle breeze rustles the remaining leaves, whisking away the sounds that try to intrude on the silence of this November night. It’s a night for magic. Not the showy make-an-elephant-appear-out-of-thin-air kind of magic; a quiet magic of the kind that takes your corner of the world and lifts it into somewhere you’ve been but can’t quite remember. It’s Venice on a dark night, threatening rain. It’s Cincinnati on Christmas Eve, with Belgian waffles and bitter lattes. It’s a cobbled plaza in Rome, a back street in Dublin, a secret corner of an old walled city in Spain. It’s that place where you stand still for a moment, feeling life and time part around you like a stream parting for a boulder as you just…watch. Silent. Listening. Not sure what you might hear.

The shop windows are all decorated for Christmas, each pane of glass revealing a snapshot of a world that only exists in children’s books and fairy tales. It whispers of steadfast tin soldiers and velveteen rabbits, of cats with bells around their necks and little engines that can. Lights sparkle off every shiny surface, carrying the magic of ten-thousand Christmases and the children who have fallen asleep beneath them, dreaming of the moment when they will wake to the most magical day of all. Christmas.

It's too beautiful to be indoors, yet not a single person is out. I could be in a ghost town or on the set of a Ronald Reagan movie after all the actors have gone home. Perhaps it’s too late in the year for anyone to think about walking the streets after dark; or perhaps they’ve all gone home for the holiday. Maybe they’ve all just…disappeared.

Curtains are open, though; lighted rooms on display for anyone who cares to look. I stand on the corner for a long moment, watching the empty windows of the apartment I dream of living in someday. I wonder if it’s empty now, and think of asking before I remember that I’m a grown up, paying mortgage on a house with three roommates and a dozen animals. Never mind; it’s a night for dreaming and so I dream of living there, a floor above everyone below, windows open to the world, watching the comings and goings of lives comingling silently. Watching, not entering. Just watching and dreaming stories, writing them down by candle light as the wind whispers at my windows and a cat circles my ankles. Someday. I think to myself, then wonder if I mean it. Someday.

Copyright 2010, Tesi