Beautiful summer weather in September puts me in an odd mood. Perhaps it always did, but for the last several years, looking out at warm, golden sunshine and cloudless azure skies reminds me of how perfect the weather was here on September 11, 2001. I also recall that we had large patches of flawless weather while we were waiting for Hurricane Isobel to strike in September 2003, and in September 2004 while Florida was being battered by so many hurricanes (and my family by Dad's illness). I know we've had an almost uninterrupted string of glorious days here while the whole ghastly calamity of Katrina has been playing out in New Orleans.
All of which sounds rather lugubrious, as if waking up to find yet another beautiful sunny day depresses me. No, I don't greet glorious days with a sigh and an ominous Eeyore-like prediction that something bad must be about to happen. Or spend them moping around, thinking about the many awful things that are undoubtedly happening elsewhere in the world. More an awareness of the bittersweet mix that is always present if we look beyond our immediate surroundings.
"About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters; how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just
walking dully along. . ."
(from W.H. Auden's Musee des Beaux Arts)
Perhaps it's a holdover from the old academic calendar--September's a month that mixes good and bad, the end of the summer and the beginning of a new school year. Like the beginning of the summer and the new year, it's a time when we feel inspired to take stock of where we are and chart plans for the future.
I'd go on at greater length, but it's an excellent day for gardening, and we may not have many more of those before the frost arrives. And perhaps that sums up September better than anything I could say if I did go on.
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