How Will We Spend...? November 2025

Moving from Halloween at the end of October into the beginning of November always seems like a liminal moment for me.  Fall leaves are pretty much all blown away, temperatures are dropping, and the double holiday season of Thanksgiving and Christmas is out there on the horizon.  Clocks fall back, and we gain an hour.  What will we do during this pause between the seasons and how will we spend that gift of an hour?
  
The first Tuesday in November aka Election Day was a sacred day for Edith Morton Chase. Born in 1891 and unable to vote until she was 29 years old, she knew what it was like to watch the government--municipal, state, and federal--move forward without her voice; therefore, she was religious about returning to Waterbury in time to vote.  As that first Tuesday approached and she prepared for the move back to Waterbury with Lucy and Mary Burrall after their almost 6-month stay at Topsmead, I imagine that she might have paused to consider the state of the country and whom she wanted to vote for.   

I imagine she might have used the pause in the seasons to walk about Topsmead before they left and make mental images of her favorite Topsmead landscapes to sustain her during winter months in the urban landscapes of Waterbury.  Perhaps she also walked about the farm buildings to make notes in her farm records of any maintenance that needed to be done:  new roofs, siding replacement, barn painting.   
I imagine that maybe during one of those farm walkabouts, she may have taken her gift of an extra hour to reflect on the weathervane that sits on top of the big barn.  (Even if it wasn't there when she was...)  Because we know that she wrote the occasional poem, I fancy that she was a metaphoric thinker and might have seen the weathervane as an indicator of which way the mood of the country was blowing.

Why not take this pause in the seasons to honor Miss Edith and make your voice heard.  Then maybe add an extra hour to your next Topsmead walkabout to find that weathervane and reflect on which way the wind is blowing?


Margaret Hunt
Blogmistress