The One Notebook Principle

From: September 2, 2017

Today we had our very first cool day.  Temperatures last night were predicted to be in the high 30s (Fahrenheit; approximately 3^o Celsius) and today it is not supposed to get above 70.  This isn’t cold, really, in an area that generally has below freezing temperatures in the winter, but it is very different to the 80 degrees we had two days ago and will have again in another two days.  Welcome to New England or, more specifically, welcome to Massachusetts.  

The leaves haven’t started changing colors yet, at least not where I am, and September has only just started, but if there’s one thing this area excels at it is reminding you that seasonal changes happen – sometimes in the middle of other seasons.  Autumn, or Fall, which technically hasn’t officially started yet, feels very close on days like today.  As a teacher, the beginning of the school year marks what feels like the end of summer, but it takes a really cool, crisp day (the kind of day where my hair brush crackles with static electricity – yes that did happen this morning) to make me think of the upcoming season.

The idea of a New England Fall is one that has been romanticized in books, movies, and television programs but it really can be quite the beautiful season.  My childhood, while happening in the late ‘80s into the ‘90s, often sounds like the 50’s instead – a fact I took for granted until college brought me into contact with people who didn’t shop at farm stands, go apple picking, and go on hayrides.  We bought our pumpkins at a farm about ten minutes away, used fallen leaves to stuff shirts for decorative scarecrows, and drank locally-made apple cider.  The woods behind my house erupted in color and, on one memorable weekend, my sister and I hand-fed a family of migrating Canadian geese in our front yard.  The town I grew up in didn’t have a Dunkin’ Donuts until I was 10 and, though I do not currently live there, still does not have a grocery store or a McDonald’s (or Burger King, or KFC, or . . . you get my point).  It does have at least three farms which sell their produce, a town fair day on the town common, and a town carnivale on the town’s fairgrounds.

It took me about twenty years to fully realise how much my childhood sounds odd to many of the other ‘80s and ‘90s children out there.  It took me a few more years to really appreciate what that means.  Most of the time, I am as caught up in the day to day grind as anyone else.  I spend more time than is probably healthy in front of some sort of screen, while the rest of my time is divided (not always evenly) between my family, my job, housework, and sleep.  It takes the first hint of impending autumn to make me slow down and think of mulled apple cider, fires in the fireplace, and wintery crochet projects.  In a way, though I’m always sad to see summer go and winter come, I can’t wait for autumn to finally arrive in all its New England glory.