September has come, it is hers
whose vitality leaps in the autumn
Whose nature prefers
trees without leaves and a fire in the fireplace.

- Louis MacNeice

oh September, you’re a tease.

you’re there, just behind the curtain, waiting.  there’s a crispness to the air, suddenly, and it promises sweaters and lined pages all new and clean and the smell of apples and the sour beer of homecoming weekends.  for a moment today i felt it, the call of fall, and it stirred me and something sang out and my step was light and purposeful in beliance of the body i lug around these days mashed into too-small clothes, belly jutting, hips giving way to gravity.  for a moment, i felt at home in myself and in the time-space continuum, because it was autumn and i could smell it on the wind and it was good.

then i loaded myself into the car without air-conditioning, the car that had been sitting basking in the sunshine, and even before i got to the doctor’s appointment all the autumn was gone from my world and i was sweaty and lumpen again and it was me i was smelling.

but you reminded me, September, you reminded me of the season on the wing and the short, bright days coming and for all i may have said about September birthdays suddenly i feel just right about it all.

i am sharp with hope, glassy and jagged, trying to be patient.  so much uncertainty, still.  so much hubris to believe it will all unfold as seasons do, expected and then brought to fruition, natural as the leaves falling.  but this season ahead, i know.  it is mine, has been since i can remember, the one in which i am most myself.  and that old intimacy gives me the oddest comfort in all this anticipation and lurching hope and excitement and trepidation.  fall, i lie to myself.  i am simply preparing for fall.

if i could knit, i would make her a little hat, to wear when we walk in the yellow leaves together.