Thirty Days Hath September

"September: it was the most beautiful of words, he’d always felt, evoking orange-flowers, swallows, and regret."
-   Alexander Theroux, 1981

For many of us, the start of the school year is more significant, new beginnings-wise, than January 1. Like all fresh starts, though, it's made from equal quantities of hope and fear.

Remember the gray-plaid top you thought looked autumnal and lent an air of sophistication? You wore it the first day of junior high, but the cool kids showed up in frayed jeans and sun-bleached tee shirts. Turns out they didn't buy back-to-school clothes. 

Maybe you unearthed a retro lunch box at a thrift shop and carried it to high school only to discover the nostalgia bus had left that station months earlier.

Time mutes our embarrassing memories and accentuates the positive ones. That's fortunate since we have to get our own kids out the door and onto the school bus. 

The expectations that come with new beginnings can be harder to hoist than a sixth-graders' backpack, which, according to a Consumer Reports' survey, weighs 18.4 pounds. Maybe those kids who came to school in frayed jeans and sun-bleached tee shirts were on to something. They stretched out summer and embraced fall when they were ready for it. 

Come September, we're programmed to start over, but we don't have to succumb. Let's finish the projects we toiled over during the summer. Let's keep what works and replace only what doesn't. Life isn't a timed test, and there are no pop quizzes coming when you least expect them. 

If you have no desire to start a new project, reinvent yourself, or buy number two pencils, cut yourself slack. Current events and the anniversary of 9/11 weigh us down. What's more, the coming autumn equinox and prospect of more darkness per day can squelch ambition in those of us most sensitive to atmospheric changes.

I like Alexander Theroux's quote at the top of the page because it nails September's mixed message. In my part of the world, September evokes dry-erase markers, crepe myrtles in defiant bloom, and, yes, regret.

What does September mean to you?