Here is the deal with September. It has always been my favorite month. As a kid, I should have loved August (month of my birth and the beginning of school) but September was always a little better. A little cooler, a little more school-y, a little more like fall even though we've got another solid six weeks until it's really fall around here. September is peace to me. It's a feeling of being settled into a routine that you're still not sick of. It's all things good and peaceful.Every year I look forward to September with an almost insane zeal. I start about January wanting September to be here. The other eleven months are preamble and epilogue to the glory of September. If there was a religion for September-lovers, I would become a nun.
I haven't grown out of that passion for September yet, but it's only because of this damn memory issue I have.
You see, I got married. And through no fault of my own, my beloved's birth occurred in September. Now, my uncle's birthday is in September too, so this wasn't exactly my first September birth, but it does have more impact. Also, his brother was born in September. This created a touch of strife for me, but mostly it added to the wondrous aura of September-ness.
Then, I spawned. In September, along (it seems) with half the planet. Brynna, her cousin and her best friend all have birthdays within 10 days of each other. So, there's this frantic birthday party run at the end of the month and it just so happens to usually coincide pretty precisely with my favorite autumnal small town festival. Which makes that kind of rough.
Additionally, I have a tendency to volunteer for things in September. 'Cause, yo, I don't know if I've mentioned this, but it's kinda my favorite month.
I am hosting my church group this Thursday for our September meeting, then, next weekend is The Husband's birthday, the big consignment sale I'm volunteering at, consigning in and shopping at, one of my very best friend's baby showers (for which I have not yet crocheted), I've got Scholastic orders for my daughter's school to deal with and that's all the first half of the month. I've mentioned, have I not, that the last half of the month is inherently crazy.
And then, it's October and my wonderful, glorious September is gone.
Every year it's like this and every year I forget that it's like this. Every year, I celebrate September coming and anticipate it's arrival like a kid anticipates their first trip to Disney. And every year, it gets here, I trudge through my to do list, barely looking up to appreciate the fun of all those birthday parties, my 17th guilt-free piece of birthday cake, the expression on my daughter's face as the leaves begin to change, that fall festival that I used to obsess so completely over that I walked to it the weekend before Brynna was born by myself, while The Husband was at work, without my cell phone.
Every year, I find myself trying to fit a few more pieces of pink plastic into my house and considering Halloween costumes and wondering where the crap September went.
And yet, by mid-November, I'll tell you once again that September is my favorite month, my favorite time of the year. I'll wax nostalgic about wearing shorts and flip-flops one day, a sweater and jeans the next, about standing out on the deck as the neighborhood across the street emerges from the summer foliage, as the leaves begin to change and fall, as Summer (that attention grabbing diva) takes one last bow and slips off stage allowing Autumn in her handkerchief hem and reds and oranges and browns and still greens move into the limelight for a few brief weeks. I'll tell you about how September makes me want to read outside, makes me want to walk miles and miles every day. About how September is always the month I make crazy decisions, like wanting to learn to kayak or thinking hiking while seven months pregnant sounds fun. About how September is, in it's essence, the geeky girl in me coming out to play. It's the month of TV premiers, of real back to school, of first tests and first papers, of new reading assignments, of bonfires, and field parties (even though I don't go to any anymore), of hot apple cider and heck, cold apple cider. A month of fair food and yes, birthday cake, now.
By January, I'm detoxing from Christmas and loving the winter, the snow (if there is any), but starting to think of September. And it's in that most terrible month of all, February, that I start to really wait for September all over again.
I know this is a whole lot of text to say that I have mixed feelings. That I am ambivalent. That again, I can't make up my freakin' mind. It's just who I am.
*Image by Ironshod (Anne Stokes). Check out more of Ironshod's work at her Deviant Art Gallery at http://ironshod.deviantart.com/gallery/. If you are a fan of fantasy art, this may make your day.
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