An Autumnal State of Mind
5 minute read
I’ve always thought September is cause for celebration because there’s so much to love about this ripe and robust month. It’s also the month I’d liken most to being in our middle years. Like women in midlife, September is busy; very busy. But more than that, the autumnal desire to harvest and preserve what will serve us well in the future, and prune back what’s not worth hanging onto, feels like an appropriate analogy for the emotional experience of our middle years. The headiness and frivolity of summer (aka our younger years) has ended. Like Ash, Birch and Beech trees, we are no longer green. Our experiences have matured us and helped us change our colours, too.
Like midlife, September has its contradictions. Gardens are simultaneously ripening and dying, and similarly, this time in our lives is characterised by both losses and gains, from losing our fertility to finding what really brings us joy. But both are moments of opportunity too. It’s been many years since this month of new routines and new-season clothes was labelled the new January, or in other words a better time to reflect and refresh than in those dreadful, dirgeful days of the new year. From sock draws to spare rooms, we organise our homes and our heads in preparation for new terms and new timetables. Evening classes, exercise classes, book clubs and running clubs begin again after the summer hiatus, connecting us with our tribe and reminding us of who we are outside of mother, daughter, wife or lover. September offers ‘me time’ for the first time in months.
I adore the weather in September more than any other month. I’m a bit of a Goldilocks in this regard. Summer is too hot, spring is too cold, winter is too wet, but autumn is just right. There’s a whiff of frosty morning freshness in the air first thing, but just enough to make you breathe in that little bit deeper and tighten folded arms beneath your breast. Nights close in but evening light seems to linger longer than it should. It’s cardigan-wearing weather, with temperatures falling just on the right side of what’s knitwear-appropriate, except on those occasional days that summer steals back. No laborious overcoats or umbrellas required yet. Does it rain less in September than any other month? In my mind it does. I can recall many soggy summers and drowned-out Januarys, but never a waterlogged return to school.
Maybe my rose-tinted glasses have coloured my memory? In many respects, though, September is an in-between month. It’s not summer, but we’ve not fallen fully into autumn yet. Just like middle age, September is a transitional time and it’s precious for that reason.
It doesn’t last in the way that other months do. January bleeds seamlessly into February and both months feel like one hard slog. October and November are like identical twins; there’s very little to differentiate them, and March to May is just an agonising wait, for weather that feels something like spring. While it rarely snows in December, as Christmas movies tell us it should, and our summers are as reliable as a Sunday bus service, September always delivers on its promises – the colours (copper and crimson), the light (dappled and dreamy), the air (fresh but fine), the scents (cinnamon and spice) are always what we expect them to be.
Maybe this is why I love September so much – it’s reliable. Unlike a lot of people, I’ll admit I’m drawn to ‘boring’ words like stability, routine, predictability. They’re flung to one side in June and July as quickly as school uniforms and bedtime routines, but I was born in the month of September so perhaps I embody its essence more than others.
I think the Irish poet Louis MacNeice was thinking of me when he wrote: “September has come, it is hers Whose vitality leaps in the autumn, Whose nature prefers Trees without leaves and a fire in the fireplace.”
But the predictability of September also has more intoxicating connotations. There’s a glut of new books, new exhibitions, new TV series and new fashion collections to indulge in; from September issues thicker than Bibles to our Saturday night instalment of the funny and fabulous Claudia Winkleman by virtue of Strictly Come Dancing.
September is as ripe and golden with opportunity as trees are with apples. It has an energy that’s almost tangible. As F Scott Fitzgerald said, “Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.” Perhaps it’s because cities are full again, as holidaymakers return from their coastal retreats and mountain hideaways. The lazy lull of August has passed. September has pace. Metaphorically, it’s the month we sharpen our pencils, open our copybooks and get back to reality with fresh vigour. We want to put manners on everything we let go to pot during those freewheeling days of June and July. My friends feel it too; that special quality September brings. Christmas may have magic, but September has spirit. Just like us midlifers.
If September can teach women in midlife and beyond anything, it’s that we are no less beautiful, interesting or necessary for being in the autumn of our lives. When the American poet Margaret Elizabeth Sangster said: “...autumn brings a longing to get away from the unreal things of life…” she could just as easily have been referring to midlife, because that’s what we do during these years isn’t it? We turn our backs on artificiality and anchor ourselves with true friends, honest relationships and inner truths. We learn to let go.
Marie Kelly, September 2021
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