For as long as I can remember November has been my least favourite month of the year.  The theatrical gloom attending Armistice Day on November 11th is punctuated by sustained clouds and inclement weather – wintry, freezing, snowing and drizzle.

Armistice Day, observed November 11th, commemorates the 1918 ceasefire that ended World War I at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, marking the end of the “war to end all wars” and honoring those who served, known as Remembrance Day in Commonwealth nations and Veterans Day in the U.S. It’s a solemn day for reflection, often marked by ceremonies, two minutes of silence, and wearing red poppies, symbolizing the fallen soldiers and the battlefields of Flanders.

I recall in particular my reluctant walk as a student along Spring Garden Road in Halifax from our residence not far from the Lord Nelson Hotel to the law school distant a couple of kilometres I believe. Tramping through wet snow on a cloudy day was not invigorating. I got spoiled in Halifax by the routinely magnificent views from nearby Citadel Hill under an azure sky. But even in Halifax November was an uncompromising depression.

And here today – that is until a moment ago – we’ve endured rain, sleet and flurries, all of which preceded any attempt by the municipality to clear the roads or salt the ice. I resolutely ventured a drive early this afternoon but wisely turned back along a gravel road when I sensed an unwelcome swirl.  Naturally I thought then unhappily of the abrupt words of my friend Hugh from his atmospheric glance in Mont Tremblant, “Get winter tires!”

The December weather forecast is only somewhat promising.  The escalating temperatures  – moderating though they may appear – bring only the expectation of rain. The contemplation of weather is however merely an interlude of my day. Though I am not at all concerned about the impending surgery at Pembroke hospital, I shall be pleased when it is over so that I may begin a less disrupted decline through January, February and March when the endodontist opines upon the sufficiency of the post (now installed in the cavity following removal of the tooth) for the final implant. Surely that must be the real terror of winter – that is, its extension, its continuation. Nonetheless I am bound to confess the universal constraint of my current and impending realities – time. Yet time, as we know, is curiously a measure of uncontrollable magnitude no matter its putative indefatigability or prolongation. Like the weather I have instructed myself to adapt to its contingencies (including rejoicing its relieving enlargement).