September is the Best Month

September is the best month.



January being the beginning of our year has always frustrated me to no end. There's nothing about January that screams 'new beginning'. It's cold, dark, depressing, Christmas having been over for a whole week, and now we're supposed to celebrate another year fading away during a boring, lifeless month of dreary existence.

I've always been a little partial to May. May is when we shrug off winter and emerge from our cocoon-like existences to go back outside and feel the sun on our face. For many, it makes sense that the year begins in May. Life renewed. New beginnings.

But I'll maintain that for our culture, September is the real start of the year. September means back to school, for one. The return of structure and purpose, a counterpoint to lazy, driftless days of summer. New clothes, new tools, new ideas, new classes.


For my family, quite often September would also mean brand new houses in new towns with new schools and new friends. Having moved around a lot as the son of an Air Force officer, August was always friendless and meant the tedious chores of unpacking and quickly familiarizing yourself with the new channels in a new town before the new TV season started.

That's something that's sort of an indicator of a bygone era. As adults in 2012 we do have new shows in a new TV season in September. But the ever more popular cable channels are coming up with off-season programming, forcing the major networks to come up with off-season programming, and the whole process is de-valuing the idea of a new season of TV shows actually starting in September. Plus, there's nothing I'm really looking forward to on today's TV anyway.








BUT... as a kid in the 1970's/1980's September's new season of TV shows always brought with it a glorious new season of Saturday morning cartoons. That was something to look forward to that was almost as powerful as Christmas morning.

The end of the year should be August. As we return from our various vacations and summer camps and say goodbye to the pool and wrap up the traditional things that we use to enjoy summer. It feels like a proper ending. A real change. And saying goodbye to these things of summer, flip-flops and no school and pools and Grandmom visits, it always feels like we'll go a whole year before seeing these things again.

September feels like birth. With the slowly changing climate, enabling you to wear short sleeve shirts for the start of the school year before October forces the long sleeves, the trees haven't quite started to change but the air is different, and camping is forced into a weekend container. There is a change. December and January bleed together with the garish interruption of the year's harshest Holiday. But August to September, that is the OCD persons New Year's Eve.


Thanks,
DCD

First Day of School

Do you have good memories of the first day of a new school year? Are those memories false?

As I get older, it seems I collect more obsessions about myself. I guess I’m trying to attain some sort of peak of quirkiness. I can tell I’m close. As soon as Lorie leaves me in a fit of frustration I’ll start collecting cats and only talking to people by hissing at them. AT ANY RATE… what I mean to say is.. one of my latest obsessions has been memory.

What makes memory work? Is it reliable? Can it be quantified and spreadsheeted up? I know there are instances where my memory has not held up against historical facts. And some instances where I’ve seen a picture or a home movie and remembered something long forgotten. These ideas are driving me a little crazy. As if I’m losing pieces of a collection that I’m in charge of maintaining. So I do memory exercises, and I keep my Years in Review (which is like a diary comprised of dates, events and facts), and we’ve discussed the spreadsheets at length. I read and re-read, and I try never to write anything strictly relying on my memory.

I have fond memories of the first day of school at several different schools. I’m going to go out on a very short limb and say that they’re false. Maybe not the memories themselves, but the warm emotions attached to them.

The first day of school was great for many reasons. Some people list excitement at getting new school supplies and clothes. Some list the change in a routine that had become dreary. Seeing old friends, sure. Meeting new friends, sure. Seeing girls? Sure! Well, girls at the pool are better than girls in the classroom, so that might be a false memory. Even in the movie You’ve Got Mail, Tom Hanks’ character mentions a “Bouquet of newly-sharpened pencils” in one of his letters to Meg Ryan when he’s extolling the virtues of fall.

But logic, experience, and known facts dictate that the first day of school was always a basket of stress and anxiety delivered in the lovely ringing of the morning alarm. Did not want! Do not want! Bullies and lockers and gym class and math and loss of freedom!

Which is accurate? The warmth of a bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils? Or the cold of the locker door into which the bully of the day has decided to push your face. Or are they both accurate?

Today is the first day back to school for my kids. Thank Heavens. I was getting sick of that whole ‘having summer off’ thing. It messes with the routine. And if you ask my son, he’s dreading school for the work and the getting up early and the potential bullies. If you ask my daughter, she’s looking forward to school for the friends and the chance to decorate her locker. My son is looking forward to friends. My daughter is dreading the change in school and having a different teacher for each subject.

So maybe both memories are accurate. Maybe when you think back to the first days of school, your mind picks the memories that match the mood you’re looking for and serves that up on a platter to your liking.

Now my brain hurts again. I need to get these facts down on a spreadsheet.

Thanks,
DCD