Tomorrow is the last day of August, and (in the hemisphere where I live) the end of summer is approaching.
Our temperatures here are still reaching into the 80s and 90s. Our air conditioning still runs during the heat of the day. It’ll be a while before summer truly turns into fall.
But the mornings have a new coolness now. The slant of the sun’s light is noticeably different. Our backyard balloon flowers have entered their second cycle of blooming, the one that comes closer to the end of the season.
Summer is nearing an end.
For me, September has always felt like the start of a new year and the start of fall. When I was growing up, from kindergarten through high school, the first day of school was always the day after Labor Day — and that felt like the end of summer, no matter what the calendar said, no matter what the temperature reached.
This weekend is Labor Day weekend here in the US. And even though so very many years have passed since those days I attended school, this weekend feels like the end of summer. And the start of a new year.
It feels like a shift, a time for something new.
I have some thoughts about what that might mean for me. I’m tentatively making a few plans for the beginning of something next week. But right now, as I continue my healing journey, I need to give myself a lot of time and space and slow pace and gentle ease… and so I’m not going to beat myself up if those tentative plans don’t go into effect immediately after Labor Day.
But it feels good to even think about them. It feels like a positive change in energy. A renewed optimism. A light breeze of air tinged with fall’s invigorating nip.
And I’m grateful for that.
♥
Ginger Simpson White 