Most of us have heard (or sang along with Elton!) about The Circle of Life. For me, the autumn months always present a complicated hybrid of endings and new starts. The garden that was vibrant with flowers only a few weeks ago is now starting to die back to crisp brown foliage, yet the trees will soon present leaves of buttery gold and red before they, too, drift down. No matter how long those mild September evenings persist, we all know what is coming.
And perhaps this is why — especially for Canadians accustomed to bracing themselves for the winter months ahead — the fall can help to nudge that change-the-record energy. After the dozy tranquillity of a ho,t dry summer, we might be more ready to tackle a cooking class, redecorate the spare room or investigate classes online. It’s all part of a cycle that I have watched myself dip in and out of via many different versions of myself that have evolved.
September, of course, is chiefly noted as back-to-school time, and most mothers will remember that first bittersweet day dropping their child off. I recall my son and I walking together slowly, his too-big backpack bobbing up and down, our shadows exaggerated versions of little and large. We paused now and then to examine empty snail shells (“Someone might be home one day,” my son pronounced earnestly), and for a while, we both forgot that today would forever mark the end of a golden time that was just the two of us.
As the red brick school came into view, I could feel the same cold syrup of anxiety unfurling in my stomach that I’d felt on my first day many years previous, transporting me back to that small, thin girl standing in the schoolyard, gripping the tweed of my mother’s skirt till my knuckles showed white. When the dreaded departure was upon us, she knelt and slipped a locket on a chain around my neck, which opened to reveal two oval chambers with my parents’ photos inside. If the homesickness got bad, she explained, I could just snap it open and have a little look inside. The day would pass quickly, and soon, I’d be home again.
But my son was not me. True, his eyebrows began to slant in a way that pulled at my heart, but anyone could see that he was more excited than anything. At the first jarring notes of the school bell, he pressed forward till he was absorbed into the crowd, a plastic dinosaur in one hand, the other hand waving. He did not look back.
I was left in a cloud of flying pea stones, blinking at the ghostly white my shoes had become. The coffee I’d been smugly anticipating drinking hot now seemed unappealing as I walked slowly back home.
Fast-forward past many more September mornings. Another variant of myself is not only looking forward to another coffee but to other things as well. This time, I do not feel sentimental. I will not miss packing school lunches or being hurt that the artful sandwich that I cut into the shape of a duck is still in the bag, with a toothy semi-circle out of the middle. I will also not wax nostalgic about prying my (then high school) boys out of bed or the gravel crunching driveway exits on a Sunday evening when it was casually mentioned that sky blue bristle board was needed for a project due Monday. (Having to cobble together a medieval knight’s outfit only using articles from the recycle box — just as we were leaving for school — remains a firm favourite in our family stories). Thank goodness for egg cartons … and wine!
Nowadays, my Septembers are certainly not frenetic. I like the peace it offers, swishing through the leaves as I walk, my mind free to drift. September no longer feels like a giant whiteboard (dated reference alert!) with nothing of my own on the schedule.
I’m much more in touch with less pressing matters. Some might find this boring. I do not. I enjoy the changing seasons more than ever and the notion that there’s always something to be curious about: What kind of native bees are in the garden? Which planet is twinkling pink in the Eastern sky? Is this the year that I will finally make my fruit vinegars? (I mean, probably not, but maybe that’s part of the process!)
Every September brings a different version of itself — just like me.
As well as a lengthy career in public library systems in Canada and the UK, Sue Sutherland-Wood has written for numerous publications. Her short essays have won national awards. Read more from Sue at her Substack, Everyone Else is Taken (EveryoneElseisTaken.substack.com).
