Fall, Again
I love this time of year. I love seeing the kids in our building leave for school in the morning, wearing new backpacks and back-to-school clothes. The really young ones always look so excited, as if they're embarking on a great adventure. The older kids may look a little more anxious, but there's still that sense that something new is beginning.
I've always thought the Jewish New Year arrives at exactly the right moment. Summer is ending, vacations are over, and we're settling back into our routines. Even if we're long past the age of new backpacks and first days of school, September still seems to offer us a chance to begin again.
And in New York, the weather is finally beginning to soften. Walking Piper is pleasurable again. I don't have to worry quite so much about her overheating or getting dehydrated, and I can come home without looking as though I've just emerged from a swimming pool.
For those of us with outdoor hobbies, it's a relief, too. I played golf the other day and was almost startled by how comfortable it felt to spend several hours outside. After a New York summer, simply not being hot can feel luxurious.
But fall has always had some sadness mixed in with all that promise.
Yesterday I sat down to make a photo album from our vacation in Maine. I love that process—sorting through hundreds of photographs and choosing the ones that make me happiest, the ones that somehow capture not just what a trip looked like, but what it felt like. And inevitably, there's a little wistfulness in it. The vacation that I was looking forward to not long ago is already something I'm preserving in an album.
Maybe that's part of what fall does. It makes the passage of time harder to ignore.
The 25th anniversary of September 11 brought that home to me this year in a way previous anniversaries hadn't. I had lived in New York for less than a year when it happened. Now more than 25 years have sailed by. I find that almost impossible to fathom.
On the morning of the anniversary, I spoke with a retired police officer who described working at the site in the months afterward. His voice shook as he talked. He told me his phone hadn't stopped ringing that morning. Friends who had lived through it with him were reaching out, wanting to connect with someone else who remembered.
There was something about that I found very moving. Twenty-five years can disappear in an instant, and yet the people and experiences that shaped us remain remarkably close.
Perhaps that's why I love fall. It holds two things at once: the excitement of beginning and the recognition that another season has passed.
The kids head off with their new backpacks. We return to our routines. We put away the photographs from summer. The Jewish New Year invites reflection and renewal. And the natural world reminds us that letting go is not necessarily an ending; sometimes it's simply what makes room for whatever comes next.
I hope this fall brings you some of whatever you need from it. A fresh start, a return to something familiar, or simply a moment to notice where you are before another season sails by.