September
Sunday was the day summer broke for fall
tearing over the fields, greenery bent wet in the breeze of her departure
boats, barbecues and beer flying past, forsaken in an instant
the future a slow dissolution to winter’s monochrome door.
September was always the girl who’d pull you close and profess her love
tease you with that summer smile—then disappear.
“I’m sorry,” she’d say, “but I have to go”
Of course, sighs a broken heart, but, like, you did this last year, too…
I’ve always loved September. And, of course, there are a bunch of reasons.
I don’t much like heat, and somehow fall—particularly its early stages—was always my favourite season growing up in Toronto. Like a lid had been lifted off a pressure cooker. I loved the sudden morning snap in the air, the frequent sunny days and onset of cold, crisp nights. I loved tracking the changing colours, raking and then jumping in dry leaves, the surge of winds in naked branches, and even the smell of the season (rot, I know, but hey). I loved playing outside on the street in the gloaming, tossing footballs and shooting tennis balls at ragged hockey nets pulled from somnolent garages. I long felt that my personal concept of summer included its extended tailing off.
I also know part of my love for September is because I’m one of those freaks who always looked forward to going back to school—particularly when I got to university, where I spent some 14 Septembers spread over four institutions. In this milieu, September was a hopeful month pregnant with fun and opportunity. In elementary school, new stuff to learn meant you were growing up (or maybe it was the other way around), and there was always the chance to be reunited with friends you hadn’t seen all summer and meet new ones. My favourite shows were back on TV with new episodes, and there was a whole slew of after-school re-runs to dig into. That kind of carried on into high school, where September also meant the start of a new social calendar and whatever hijinks went with it. By uni, September just felt like the latest episode of Life on Your Own where you fully held the reins and anything was possible. Maybe that’s why September, and not spring, was always my romance month.
Since moving to Whistler more than 20 years ago, it has felt a lot like life begins after Labour Day here. You can actually drive to Lost Lake again. The number of sonically obnoxious motorcycles and revving engines takes an immediate and noticeable plunge (BTW, what is up with people driving up and down Highway 99 like it’s a Midwest town on a Saturday night in 1957?). The settling and cooling of air masses in September have resulted in the best canoe trips of my life—both East and West. And the shouldering weather in both hemispheres means September is also surely the best month to travel. It’s also often more affordable as the madding crowds return to their daily lives and hotel prices and airfares drop (well, at least they used to—who knows what will happen in the new Gouge-ocene).
Fortuitously, my birthday falls in early September. The fifth to be exact. And, oddly to me, I seem to know lots of people who were also born in the first two weeks of September. But maybe this isn’t so odd given that there’s an actual reason: according to a recent study, the winter season holds biological perks for pregnancy, and more babies than usual are born in early September because couples have an “easier” time conceiving around Christmas (could this mean that heavily spiked eggnog serves a population-level service after all?). Holiday parties and hook-ups also likely explain the spike in wintertime conceptions. Being born in early September apparently has astrological significance. Though it doesn’t mean anything to me, on occasions too numerous to recount, once apprised of my birthday, many a woman has responded with “Oh, so you’re a Virgo—that figures.”
All of this aside, I think the main connection is my eastern roots. September always felt like The… Best… Month… in places like Ontario, Quebec and New England—a vast, forested land that seems to exist for the sole reason of being lived in at this time of year. I don’t think this is a new idea, as marketers seem to have been stuck on it forever: they use September to prime you for Thanksgiving, Halloween, and these days, even Christmas. By the end of the month, the first stirrings of autumn have become screams, and by the time the equinox hits it feels almost past due. When it comes to the celestial markers of changing seasons, September also feels like a better, more obvious bridge month than March, June or December.
Also—and I figure this is no small potatoes—if you’re a fan of R&B or soul, September is funky AF.
September
Do you remember / The 21st night of September?
Love was changin’ the minds of pretenders / While chasin’ the clouds away
Our hearts were ringin’ / In the key that our souls were singin’
As we danced in the night, remember / How the stars stole the night away
—Earth, Wind and Fire, 1978
Leslie Anthony is a Whistler-based author, editor, biologist and bon vivant who has never met a mountain he didn’t like.
