Today, with the arrival of the last day of November, there is a feeling of orphanhood and emptiness, a centrifuge in the chest of the Sevilleans, I do not know whether it is rare or merely reticent, who feel the tendency that these thirty days will dissolve at the next midnight forever in the world. … Foggy oblivion from yesterday. We looked forward to his arrival as much as we now regret his departure. November, November Seville for the first cold weather, the early sunset, the fledgling green covering the brown of the barren land, and the resounding blue of the sky after a stormy night that never returns. As I felt it, the soul began to taste the sweet bitterness of nostalgia. Feeling homesick is the most enjoyable way to grieve. And this pleasure, in Seville – as the poet Rafael Montesinos said – is usually enjoyed in advance. We feel nostalgia for what we did not experience; About one day he will leave even though he has not yet arrived; From a past time that we recall without knowing it, and even from a present that will soon end. How November will happen, which leaves today and takes with it, I do not know if the soul of Seville, but it takes its deepest secrets; This is what another poet, Manolo Garrido, called “magic” and identified with the hidden magic of small wonders that only sensitive souls know how to appreciate, like the blades of grass that grow in the cracks of the pavement. November is an example of the many subtleties that the city retains in its soul; Of all those little details – indefinable, sometimes priceless – that make it what it is: a place that perhaps words have never been invented to describe accurately; Perhaps this is why stereotypes persist and clichés become redundant when the naive purpose of explaining them has been served. At some point, we will have to realize our powerlessness and give up explaining the inexplicable once and for all. Seville is undoubtedly one of them. November is almost over, the shadow is advancing on the wall, and you can hear the hours ticking by. They call it the month of the dead. But November in Seville is something far more serious than that funereal caricature. Much more than the deceased; That of Don Juan and Doña Ines; That Hostería del Laurel and the ghost of the Church of San Onofre; that the new must be of Umbrete and Venta de los Gatos; That of the bones of a saint and the sword of San Fernando; From Pichardo’s Halloween and the Chestnut Bearers; From the kiss of the hand of bitterness and the incense of the Amparo procession, the mysterious mist in the cold of the autumn night. November is the essence of the arcana called Seville. Passing through the thick veil of its secrets leads to the inextricable mystery of an indefinable city. But today is the last day. Her page in the calendar, already yellow and dry, was about to be carried away by the wind to mix among the papers piled up next to the wall. On November’s grave, a cheerful wreath announces that Christmas is coming. November dies. And farewell to him forever. When I come back next year, none of us will be the same.
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