I don't think of November as my favourite month, but I always end up enjoying it immensely. It is the most routine month of the year, or at least a stark contrast to the busyness of the nine months preceding it, and I find myself getting things done, doing creative projects, learning new things, journaling reflectively, writing long, eloquent letters, making Christmas presents, and sensing the swift passing of days and years as another whole twelve-month wanes into the cool of the year. I love the feeling, for, as I soliloquized one November, if I had nothing to look forward to after death and believed my consciousness would end at some point, the thought of the passage of time would cause me to panic. As it is, I can watch the seasons pass and the times change and know that I have all eternity to enjoy yet. There's no need to mourn the end of one thing if the next is even better and the thing after that is unimaginable.
Here, then, are the songs that express the way I feel.
I discovered Andrew Peterson in Bolivia, and I love his singing. It is sentimental in a fine way. Day by Day is my favourite of his, right now anyway.
Auld Lang Syne is one I listened to at the close of Goertzenville a year ago. I cried then, and it always reminds me to cherish the fun times we have during these madcap years.
Musicals are great for this kind of music. I love the scene in Fiddler on the Roof surrounding Sunrise, Sunset.
And then there's Les Miserables. Jean Valjean is a fascinating character, and one can see all the melancholy and love and hope in his heart through this prayer.