A Soft Beginning

What’s your favourite month of the year? Why?

November arrives in colour.
Jacarandas burst into violet clouds, and lawns disappear beneath a soft, uneven carpet of purple. Every footstep becomes a whisper through petals. The air shifts too—not yet heavy with summer, but warm enough to loosen the shoulders, warm enough to invite the day in.

Outside my office window, the crepe myrtles are gathering themselves. Their tight buds swell, flushed pink, preparing to open. Soon the bees will come, drunk on the first taste of summer’s sweetness. Even now you can hear them—an early hum, like someone warming up an instrument.

There’s a particular light in November: clearer, gentler, slanting longer across the grass. The afternoons stretch, the evenings linger, the breeze carries just a hint of salt and heat.

Inside, the season has its own sound. Pages turning. Keyboards tapping. Quiet anxiety. Students pacing hallways with highlighters in hand—stressed, focused, determined. And beneath it all, the unmistakable undertone of anticipation. Summer is just beyond the horizon. Home is calling.

November is the cusp.
The Christmas rush hasn’t yet swept us away. Calendars are filling, but there’s still space—small pockets of calm before December’s whirlpool begins.

It’s a month painted in colour, warmed by light, held gently between urgency and ease. A month that feels alive to sight and sound and possibility. A month you can smell, hear, and almost taste.

A soft beginning to summer.