Book of Days

Transition: Fall into Winter. This is November. And I know, it’s been November for a while; nonetheless, here is your Convivio Book of Days Calendar for November. The calendar, our monthly gift to you. Sometimes it’s a little late. I was selected for a jury back in October and since then, I’ve spent most of my days in a courtroom at the Palm Beach County Courthouse. This is not good for someone who likes routine. It has pretty much thrown my life off the rails. But yesterday afternoon, things wrapped up. I walked out of the courthouse and noticed for the first time in a while that it is autumn. Not an easy task here in South Florida, but there it was, discernible in the quality of sunlight, in the feel of the air: light. At home, I was welcomed by the earthy smell of bamboo leaves everywhere on the ground, pale green and brown. Pumpkins on the porch still, Indian corn on the door.

We are a week from Thanksgiving and ahead of it St. Cecilia’s Day and St. Clement’s Day: Cecilia patron of musicians, Clement of blacksmiths and metal workers. And on the Sunday after Thanksgiving: the First Sunday of Advent, the beginning of the gentle shift toward Christmas.

Things in our catalog of interest now: Advent calendars and Advent candles. The calendars we sell are from printers in Germany, where the tradition first began. A few are from England. The German ones are just like the ones I remember from when I was a kid. I had one each Advent leading up to Christmas, and each night I would open another window, beginning on the First of December, all the way up to Christmas Eve. I’d hold up the newly opened window with a light behind to see the image glow. I still do that. The German calendars are the best, full of sparkle and light. The calendars and the candles both contribute to what we call The Slow Christmas Movement: taking things slowly, appreciating the days as they come. There are also plenty of new Christmas items in our catalog, too, and we still have a few things to add. Also new this year: FREE SHIPPING when you spend $50. You can also come see us and shop Advent and Christmas and Shaker herbs and teas directly: We’ll be at the Harvest Makers Marketplace at FAU on Sunday November 27.

Go on. Enjoy the month.

Lots going on these days! It was Seth’s birthday on the last of September and then we segued right into my mom’s 90th birthday at the start of October, so it was, oh, nonstop celebration all weekend. Then at work on Monday I walked in to learn that there had been a water leak all weekend; by the time the water mitigation crew left for the day on Monday night, their amazing vacuum equipment had sucked over 300 gallons of water out from under the bamboo floorboards. The drying-out process will continue for at least another week. And still that same day we learnt that the forecast track for Hurricane Matthew was beginning to suggest that he had us squarely in his sight. And so Tuesday at work we prepared for the storm, and Wednesday we prepared the home of an old family friend. Thursday morning we will prepare ours, and then we will wait.

This is all to say I’m sorry, but I am just now getting around to letting you know that your Convivio Book of Days Calendar for October 2016 is posted to our website. It is a printable PDF, ready to print on standard US Letter size paper, and a great companion to the Convivio Book of Days Blog. Cover stars this month: pumpkins photographed just last week, before all the madness began, at our friends Leif and Jeffrey’s home––these green pumpkins are from last year’s harvest! They’re still looking beautiful. And any friend of pumpkins is a friend of mine.

Over at the Convivio Book of Days Catalog, we are trying something new: we’ve operated for years under a flat $8 shipping fee policy, but now if you spend $50 at the Convivio Book of Days catalog, you’ll get free shipping. Magic words, aren’t they? FREE SHIPPING. I love them, too. We’ve also figured out a way for folks outside the US to order (you’ll see a flat $30 shipping charge on your invoice, but we will contact you with the actual shipping rate before we ship or charge your card and will adjust the charge accordingly… most likely your actual shipping charge will be less), so that, too, is something new.

Also new are lots of new items added to the catalog––mostly handcrafts from San Miguel de Allende for your Day of the Dead and Halloween celebrations but also lovely screen printed tea towels for cider season. (Speaking of cider: don’t forget the Shaker mulling spices.) We’ve also added about a dozen new German advent calendars this week, too, and as long as we have power during the storm, I’ll work on adding some new Christmas and letterpress items, too. Right after I bake a batch of granola for Seth.

Pretty soon we will have reached the point where we have done all we can to prepare, and we will take shelter. There seems to be, at least here in Lake Worth, no need for evacuations, so we plan to stay put, Seth and me and Haden the Convivio Shopcat. We will watch the wind and rain from the shelter of this old house. The house is wood, cedar and old Dade pine, tough as nails, but it will creak and moan a lot, especially as we get into the thick of things, and there will be times when things will get a little scary. We know this; we’ve done it before. We’ll be okay, we all will be, you, too.

Now go on: get shopping. Spend 50 bucks, make us pay for that shipping. We promise to take good care and to not send anything out until the rain has passed. Happy October.

Grassy Waters Preserve is a natural wetlands ecosystem not far from where we live. It serves as the freshwater supply for West Palm Beach, but it also serves as a place where one can experience Florida’s great big sky, a place where the big sky is reflected in water below. Seth was out there for work one day recently; while he was there, he took the photograph that is the cover star for your Convivio Book of Days Calendar for September. The calendar is our monthly gift to you, a good companion to this blog, one that you can print on standard US letter size paper and pin to your bulletin board or stick on the refrigerator door, reminding you of the ceremony of a day.

This is what our sky often looks like this time of year, and for those who say we have no seasons I would counter with the notion that this is a September sky, a hold out from our summer skies, and it looks nothing like our winter skies. Summer holds on for a while longer here than in other places. Our seasonal shifts are subtle.

It is, nonetheless, a month of seasonal shifting: Autumn arrives by the almanac, this year on the 22nd. There are days that are weather markers: Matthew’s Day, bright and clear / Brings good wine in the next year is the general thought on St. Matthew’s Day, just before that day of equinox. It is a month of balance: day and night will be pretty much equal come that third week, but the balance is ephemeral; the planet keeps shifting in its seat and we enter the darker time of year here in the Northern Hemisphere. Even that sky will shift: Come October, we’ll see a lot fewer days that look like that.

Shifting planets and skies you can view by looking down as much as you can by looking up? Wonderful stuff. I wish you a month of wonder, too.