My wife is remembering things: childhood things, family things, friendship things. She is exploring the world of remembering that is the foundation for who we are today. It’s bleeding over into my world also, as it often does on September 1. I am a summer person, a person of light, warm and green. September 1 always reminds me that all of that ends in a few short weeks, although here in our valley summer does tend to hold on well into October. Nevertheless, September 1 sets up the countdown for my annual fall melancholy during which things are remembered. Some of them utterly ridiculous. One of those memories popped into my head this morning. It was of the first days of school from maybe the 8th grade on when I wore my best fall clothes (new cords, long sleeve shirt and sweater) no matter how hot it was on the principle that September equalled school equalled cool weather equalled good looking fall clothing in spite of high temperatures. It was followed by Minnesota winters wearing only a cheap lightweight letter jacket for outerwear on the principle that letter jackets had the mystical power to keep one warm, or at least looking good. I would like to believe that these principles of teenage sartorial logic have not become the foundation for the way I think today, but since I ended up in theology it is cause for wonder.
September does bring some good things. Just ate the first apple of the new season out of a local orchard.
CP:A wonderful and eloquent post.Thanks!
You have touched upon a perhaps very common experience–random memory of associational trivia! Sometimes, of course, triggered by the weather, or just the date, whether the weather appropriate or not. September 1 is especially evocative of association with the beginning of the school year; I have a recurrent dream/nightmare of being lost in an unfamiliar crowded campus on the first day of classes, unable to find my classroom! Maybe a Jungian shrink could make a lot out of that dream! Dr B