I know that we celebrate the arrival of the new year in January, but that has never felt right to me. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again, the Tuesday after Labour Day feels like the beginning of a brand new year to me. Around here today marks the end of summer, the first day of school and a shift from the easy, laid back attitude of summer to the more efficient, straightforward call of the fall. Even the weather agrees today – it’s time to settle down and get back to business.
I love summer best. I look forward to the heat, the slower speeds, dinner in the backyard, sitting under the stars and the twinkle lights on the patio, nursing drinks into the wee hours with friends, family and music. I look forward to lakes, and the woods and canoes and the cottage and this summer I had a little of all of those things, but it still felt like summer never really "took." I blame grief for that, and trying to re-create a world that doesn’t have Tupp in it. (At first I typed "didn’t" and then remembered that this is permanent, and made the correction.) We’re faring ok, as a family, and I’m almost ok with chalking this summer up to a learning curve, and it makes the autumn even more welcome.
I feel like with this day, we’re turning over a leaf, probably one of the ones that fell off the backyard tree this morning. The tree knows what’s up. It’s time. Time to settle down, time to move into a different phase, cozy up the house for the long winter, and get out the yarn. Time to start a baby blanket. 
I’ve got the swatch, I’ve done the math, and I’ve begun. I’m taking a cue from the time of year, and I’m settling into it.
“It’s the most wonderful tiiiiiimmme of the yearrrrr” is what we sing as we boot The Hurricane and The Tornado onto the school bus.
I just love how yarn-ies mark the change of seasons and the passing of time by different projects. Now the past few days make way more sense to me.
Lovely. What a great perspective. I think I, too, will settle in.
I always feel that way, too, and then another 90-degree day or three hits. But the sentiment is shared!
I agree 100%, the year starts in September! In the fall I want to organize the house and make sure everything is ready for a slow and steady winter. On your marks, get ready, hibernate!
We started school a month ago, and we still have about 6 weeks or more of 100+ temps. Someday I will live someplace where September counts as fall.
Well said, and the feeling is even more so here in Kingston with the arrival of the Queen’s students back in my neighbourhood. The squirrels feel it too; they’ve begun frantically digging up my lawn. This morning I took out all the sweaters and checked them over for you know what. All OK, thank goodness. Sad to say goodbye to warmth, but nice to be thinking, “hello, Wool!”
For me, it is the opposite – the year starts with spring, and winds down in late autumn.
Spring is the promise of things to come, to get ready and prepare – the garden for planting, the house (I do SPRING cleaning).
Autumn is the time to reap the harvest – for me it is the most colourful and plentiful season. I then start winding down in early November, when it starts getting dark early, and it is time to prepare for winter solstice and Christmas.
This is my time of year – I love the colors, the harvest foods, the process of getting cozy for the winter. I am happiest in a turtleneck and sweater. The more wool I can wrap around me the happier I am. I would never want to live where I could not enjoy the glorious-ness that is the changing seasons.
Lovely post and thoughts. Still approaching the 90s here in Iowa…but there are leaves on the ground to indicate the end of our summer is near. Nights are beginning to cool and I have begun moving the spinning wheel into a more prominent part of the house.
Happy knitting.
I know what you mean about summer never really taking this year; I lost a very close relative in February and things just haven’t been the same without her this year. I’m really not a summer person though; I like the cooler months better. Looking forward to knitting up those woolens again!
I cast on last week in the lovely rusty orange that was all wrong back in the spring.
The season is turning, the knitting-is-important-not-strange months are coming, and I am mostly glad.
If you slowed down over the summer, I sure didn’t notice! I agree that the first day of school is THE game changer. I make a school year resolutions, but like you, my lists,are high reaching and sometimes unattainable. Best of luck for the year ahead!
When my husband and I lost close family members during the past three years, we realized that grief is like a film that lies between you and the rest of life for a while as you adjust to the world without a loved one. He aptly equated it to the white noise produced by machines that blocks out awareness of other sounds around you and wrote a poem that spoke of the feeling.
Grief Is the Season of White Noise?? 9/23/2010
Stephen Poppino?? 7th draft
Grief is the season of white noise.
Snakes’ hissing in the mind
forms icy mists;
subtle fangs, concealed,
sever thought from act.
The heart, concussed with pain,
shivering and stumbling, slow as snails,
hopelessly listens through drooping ears
for a shift of season.
My youngest is in Grade 12 this year, so last of the scheduled school years, even if university comes along it will be different. A surprising amount of melancholy has settled in and I’m not handling it well. Knitting is the thing to turn my hand to.
My absolute favorite time of the year….I never feel alive in the Summer – now I do. Time to get outside and walk through the fallen leaves; time to spin & knit & weave. Time to make wine & beer (and drink both). Time to bake and read and…LIVE!
I always feel like the Tuesday after Labor Day (in the US) is also the start of the fall season. I’m okay with that. I think fall is probably my favorite season. However, I’m not sure what fall in California is going to be like. I mean, we were here last fall but everything was still so new that I don’t think “fall” ever really settled in for me. So, we’ll see what this year does for my favorite season…
Also, it appears that it’s time to have all the socks on needles right now. ::sigh::
Our library used to have a copy of Elizabeth Zimmerman’s Knitting Without Tears, but they DISCARDED it!
It’s finally almost cool enough to knit without having a fan pointed directly at my face and hands. This pleases me greatly.
Oh so that’s why I cast on a mitt yesterday.
If you really miss the heat you can come to my place. September in LA is usually hot.
And I’m gonna need the pattern for that blanket.
In Manitoba our summer arrived so late that we are still expecting to have warm weather for another several weeks. Weather predictions are a long warm fall followed by a mild start to winter. This would not surprise me, but we always pay later in the form of bitter weather in January and February.
Despite having no kids in school, college or university, fall is the season when I really gear up my knitting. I sell my work at the farmers market in summer, and don’t sell much of it because it is hard to picture yourself in warm woollies when strolling around in a tank top and shorts in 90-plus degrees F (30C and up).
Now is the season of fall and winter craft sales, the season when my knitting truly comes into its own, the season when no matter how many socks and hats I turn out, they will be bought. First Fall Craft Sale happens on October 26th and between now and then are five weeks of farmers markets, for which I KNOW that I do not have enough items to fill a table. Better get knitting, better examine the stash to see where it falls short, and better get my behind down to Ontario on the train instead of driving, so I will have more time to knit before embarking on my annual Fall Fibre Pilgrimage.
Oh man, I want to be going back to school! But I know winter is coming, so it’s time to knit faster.
I have bright things ahead, but I know what you mean about the summer. It’s been one of those years.
Hopefully next summer is just that much better to make up for it!
Katie =^..^=
Today I finally got all of my darling children, Havoc, Mayhem and Chaos off to school. I love it when that happens!
I also love the stitch pattern you’ve chosen for the blanket. Always one of my favorites!
And the leaves are layering up in the lace. Yes.
I was wondering how you all were doing in the face of such a staggering loss, and found myself offering up a prayer towards peace in the hardship. This has been our own year of stopping mid-prayer, please bless Dad and M–oh right. Mom H doesn’t need any help from us anymore, she’s probably helping to bless *us* from up and out there somewhere.
And the seasons transition.
Tomorrow starts the Jewish New Year, which has always felt right to me, coming in the Fall as it does. It just feels like the beginning of a new year.
I haven’t had a child at home to start school in nearly 20 years, but the year begins today for me, too. So many years of my life were wrapped around that schedule, it’s not worth making the mental shift at this point. Unfortunately, the weather here (Northern Virginia) is still too warm to make me believe fall is about to arrive. Autumn has always been my favorite season; the newly crisp days, the changing colors, make me feel more alive. I lived in a place without seasons for a few brief years, and was endlessly befuddled by the lack of change happening.
But on an unrelated but very, very odd note, my next-door-neighbors, for the first time in the three years I’ve lived here, just finally cleaned all the mosquito-raising water from the bottom of their empty pool and filled it — this week! Do they plan on using it this winter or something???
Like Eva, I am celebrating the Jewish New Year. L’shana tova, a healthy, joyous, and prosperous 5774 to all.
The last couple of years have been tough ones for me and my family so I understand your feelings about this past summer. I am readjusting and probably will for the rest of my life. Peace and Love.
I guess slowing down and relaxing is relative?
So agree on the year begins in September after Labor Day, and have felt this way for a long time (even though my child is now in college).
Shift in season, shift in focus, shift in intensity…even if we will have warm weather for another month or more!
It still feels like summer here, so I’ve no plans to “settle in” ’til Halloween, but I do smell what you’re cookin’.
As nice as the ‘drier’ air is, and the milder temperatures, Fall is a mixed blessing. REALLY don’t go for those shorter days!!! I don’t have kids, except my cats, so the whole going back to school thing is a thing of the ancient past for me. That said, I decided that Sunday was going to me my New Year. I had live in company (my sister) for the summer and after living alone for forever, it really caused me to flounder all summer, never got on a roll to do all the things I planned on before she arrived, but that list went out the window. And now it’s back, ’cause those dang cats NEVER read the to-do list… Lovely blanket, by the way… 🙂
Grief is hard. Peace to you and yours.
You know , Steph, I have to agree with you about this time of year as a beginning of sorts. I always feel the change when the afternoon light begins to slant, and the shadows lengthen. I feel energized to organize, as if in preparation for something. Love the blanket!
Rosh Hashanah, Jewish new year, is generally in September. This year it starts tomorrow at sundown! “L’Shana Tova,” which means “To a Sweet Year.”
It’s autumn? I’d better cast on some more socks! I always feel I have more energy at this time of year; as a teacher it is the time of new beginnings.
You are not alone. September is the beginning of my year too!
I’ve never felt the first of the year on Jan. 1 either. I usually feel the mark of the new year on my birthday (how egocentric!) since that is when I start reviewing the year and what I’ve done or experienced.
Fall cannot come soon enough for me. I am so ready to make soup and knit by the fire again!
I have two delightful young daughters, who both started school today. It is the second year in which they are both in full days of school. Now I greet school-parent friends, as well as parents I haven’t seen over the summer ,with a great big “Happy New Year!” the first time that I see them. I even did so to the Principal this morning, who is a University-days friend.
It’s been ages since I’ve been in school myself, but I never lost the rhythm of it, having worked at the University for a decade, after attending for six years. It’s such an exciting time, with many new things beginning, and familiar favourites restarting (yes, I spelled it that way on purpose – we do that here in Canada!). An open door for the new and renewal. Also, time to sit, breathe, reflect, and look at the colours, a kind of meditation to move into the peace of Autumn Days.
Thank you, Stephanie, for letting us in, and staying in touch.
P.S. Are you (or have you already) published that baby blanket? Gorgeous!
Well, the Jewish New Year (Rosh Hashanah) starts tomorrow evening, for 48 hours (you need 2 whole days to get yourself properly into a new year), so your instincts are bang on!
Shanah tovah umetukah — a good and sweet year — to everyone!
Well said! Fall is in the air and time to hunker down with good wool and good books!
Lovely pattern. Which one is it? Can’t wait to see a pix of the FO. The last baby sweater was adorable.
The world will never not have Tupp in it, Steph. Not with all the joy he brought and all the lives he touched.
Much love to you!
Tupp will always be with you, in your heart and all those who loved him. As for “the tree knows what’s up”, I went to a yarn store today, and bought wool for mittens. It’s time.
I’ll join the others in wishing you a Shana Tova! Fall is the start of a new year in so many ways- we grow up starting a new school year in the fall, then when you have kids, it’s the same thing all over again. Fall seems a time to get re-energized after the summer and get started on new projects.
Grief is no stranger to all of us – and is strongly present in my life this year. Because Tupp lived, there is more love in the world than there would have been without him. And for him, that was the reason above all others for the gift of life.
“You will not see me, so you must have faith. I wait for the time when we can soar together again, both aware of each other. Until then, live your life to its fullest and when you need me, just whisper my name in your heart, I will be there.” – Emily Dickinson
Sending you love…wishing you peace.
This week has been daffodils, putting sweet pea seeds to sprout and buying indie-dyed rainbow alpaca-silk 4ply from happy-go-knitty for a cowl for the next winter/stash. Spring here in the antipodes, and the sap is rising. But like you, time for a change of season.
I agree, it does feel like a new year when fall sets in. Plus this year, it’s Jewish New Year on the 5th. Our tree’s leaves are turning in Berkeley, CA, I suppose ’cause the days are shorter, not because it’s cooler. It’s our hottest, & driest now…hoping for late autrum & winter rains.
Oh how I wish it felt like fall here. We have had temps in the 90s F., and even in the mornings it is 70. Here in Denver, we used to get down into the 50s and 60s every summer night. Now it’s the high 60s or low 70s. I have a sweater ready to go – but it is too hot for anything but shawls or socks right now. Enjoy your autumn. Surely it must reach here sometime.
Nice!
And here in the States, we just celebrated Labor Day, & schools are getting back in session. Days are noticeably shorter, and I’m pulling out yarn to swatch for the next cardigan, my first Gansey/Jersey/Guernsey. 🙂
I, too, wonder where in the Hell summer went. Seems like I blinked and it was done.
Beautiful baby blanket. Would love to have the pattern, especially if it upscales to afghan-sized readily.
So sorry for your loss.
I lost my husband last year, the first of my cousins in May, my dad in June. Sept. 2nd Dad would have been 92.
It is a whole new world and I, also, am ready for the next season.
I, too, wish you a Happy Jewish New Year! L’Shanah Tovah! There are never enough Holidays! Celebrate them all!
I have to agree with this.
The first day of school, or even the getting ready for school stage, always felt like the beginning of the year to me. Still, many long years after I stopped having them, and a few years after I stopped having them via my children… this time of year has always felt like when things begin. Summer is fine although I don’t like it as much as some, has always felt like the celebration at the end of the long haul. The cast party. The time we relax and get some well-earned rest from a big chunk of hard work.
I understand completely what you mean about being ready for a new season and summer. Like you I lost a beloved family member and friend in June. In spite of it being intensely hot and muggy, for me it was the summer that that wasn’t. I am finally ready for summer and summer is over. Sigh! I really like the idea of the year starting in the fall. It definitely feels like more of a change than January 1st does. Thanks for the great post.
Here in Atlanta we never really had summer, lots of cool rainy days (over 50″ of rain so far this year) So I too am ready to head into the time of pumpkins and more knitting. Although because there is a baby due in December, I have already been knitting.
Though I’ve been out of school for cough-cough years, and even in the long gap before our daughter came along (now in college), I’ve continued to think in terms of school years, so I get what you’re saying, even apart from the weather. Ours is unseasonably cool right now, but I know it won’t last.
Also this year, Jewish New Year is very early (beginning the evening of September 4th – tonight!) and so the timing of a “new” year feels even more right.
Fall is my absolute favorite time of year. In Dallas it comes a little later, temperature wise. But I am perpetually on a school calendar. Some things never change. I like your baby blanket! The little link didn’t go to the pattern, but maybe someday :>) !!
We lost our son last September. He would have been starting his senior year in high school this week. We would have been happy and excited for him,experiencing this fall season in a wildly different way as our youngest of three began that bittersweet march of maturity that is senior year. Fall will never again be that joyful turning of seasons. I understand about summer “not taking”. I don’t feel grounded, just moving along as the calendar page turns. I get it. And yet there is a baby blanket newly cast on my needles as well. Our niece’s baby will arrive and bring with it joy and promise in January. We move forward, even if it is with that “ungrounded” feeling. God Bless.
We had a similar summer two years ago, dubbed the Summer of Suck, in which we lost my dad, a friend, two alpacas and a dog. It’s taken a couple of years now to slowly reclaim our summers – I’m optimistic for next year. I love the turning point of fall, that “preparing to hunker down” season. I’m with you, the New Year should begin now.
Really stupid question: why do you need a swatch for a baby blanket? It’s not like it’s not going to fit if you don’t get the same gauge as the pattern, right?
We never had a real summer, by weather standards, in Southern Ontario, so it’s sort of making the switch into fall hard for me!
As for making a swatch for a baby blanket…it’s a great idea! You need to know how the pattern looks, if you want to go up/down a needle size, what happens when you wash/block it, etc. It sucks when you’re done your blanket, then wash and block it, and realize you didn’t need to knit it so large because blocking let it grow quite a bit more!!
Stephanie, grief takes time. Best to respect it and remember your Uncle’s life and the wonderful times. Take his memory to dinner and have one for him!!
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve slowly begun to recognize the gift of perspective that has slipped into my awareness. Some years, I really get into Christmas, and all the cards get send, cookies get baked, presents get selected and wrapped beautifully, stockings stuffed with tiny but personal delights, etc. And some years… not so much. I used to think of this as a personal failing, but then I realized… some years are just like that. It makes me really boil things down their essentials… for instance, there are always stockings hung up and filled, even if they just have gum and post-it notes inside them… and I trust myself to figure out how to make those necessary traditions fit, even if I’m depressed or broke or sick or super-busy. And I’ve learned to forgive myself when there’s a year or two with no cards sent, and to really treasure what DOES get done. This is in no way to dismiss your grief! I’m just trying to say that you have more summers in the hopper, maybe many more, and some will shine, and some will suck, and that’s OK. xoxo!
Stephanie, Tupp’s spirit will ALWAYS be in your world, just like my mom’s is, whose physical self departed 4 years ago. He’s in your heart and your mind whenever you want him, and I firmly believe he’s seeing you and sending you his love and support.
Presbytera– you forgot to mention something.
(Hint: It begins with, “If you’re settling down in earnest now,” and ends with, “then you can update the tour schedule.”)
For my part, this always feels like the time of year to pull out Robert Frost. Settle down, yes. But slow down and work steadily, not sporadically. And Robert Frost has the right tempo for that kind of work.
One of the answers, IMHO, is to come to Tucson! With approx. 360 sunny days a year, it’s almost like summer year round. Hurry! I’ll leave the porch light on for you!
September is ALWAYS the new year to me, and always will be. Fall is my favorite season as well, with winter and spring tied at second just behind, so there’s so much to look forward to – including sweater weather, of course. (Can you tell I live in a hot-summer climate? Slogging through months of 90F-plus temperatures is like a march through the Sahara. Really, even September can be too hot, but at least it looks like fall!)
CSK- our daughter died 23 years ago today. She was 18. I understand how you feel and will never be the same. But we persevere, move forward knowing that we can survive anything-we already have. Wishing you peace from my heart.
Happy New Year to all who celebrate tonight.
September 1 is my birthday so for me the year has always started then. Even more so when I had school age kids, but it still feels like it today when my kids are starting to have kids.
I love posts and comments like this that elicit such thoughtful responses from “the Blog.” What a wonderful caring community this is. I’m glad to be part of it.
Gorgeous baby afghan. What is the stitch?
Stephanie,
Thank you for this post. I enjoy your blog, always. I have been struggling this summer with my own losses. Children leaving, prolonged illness, others… I, too, love fall and this does feel like the start of a new year. Yes, this summer was a learning curve. Now with head high, shoulders back, & eyes bright I will embrace this new year & soon our first grandchild. Life is looking good.
Understandably the weight of grief changes the way a time of year is experienced. Our thoughts are with you as you try to move along into a new way of life.
As for the blanket, it’s lovely already – can’t wait to see the new babe!
I’m so grateful for yarn it’s not even funny…
I always feel like September and back to school time is the beginning of the year as well, it hasn’t changed since stopping working in education so good to see others feel the same. We’ve had a weird summer too, all firsts without my Dad and without my husband’s Grandma. Grief is so hard and those firsts are the hardest part I think. Thinking of you and your family.
The blanket looks like it will be beautiful x
I totally agree. In fact, every September 1st I start a new exercise journal (I try to track my annual exercise minutes). I find it a good time to “get back to business” after the summer partying. September is a time of year with so much energy everywhere and feels like new things are starting. As opposed to January which feels more like “Just hang on man! You’ll get through it, you always do.” In my opinion, January is a terrible time of year to try to start anything new.
As the daughter of two teachers, September has always felt like the beginning of the year for me. I watch the little ones waiting for the school bus when on my way to work, and my own daughter heads back to college this week. I love the change of seasons, but find it hard to let summer go. Like many have said, and in my case there is no specific reason, summer didn’t take hold this year. Today in New England, although a lovely warm day, fall is clearly in the air and the change in light. Interesting that someone who loves summer as much as you, lives in such a cold climate. Maybe that makes it more of a special treat when it finally comes.
I couldn’t agree more. Fall has always felt like a beginning to me. The blanket is lovely and looks like it will be all a baby blanket should be. It’s beautiful, even in its beginnings!
I feel much the same way. Although it will still be quite hot in the daytime down here for at least a few more weeks, summer is losing its fierce grip on the night, and soon it will start to be cool at night, and eventually, much less humid and then chilly. So even though we do not get the deep freeze as you do, next month we can bring out good socks and lovely shawls, and then, after Halloween, we can feel justified in bringing out the sweaters.
At this time of year, the mild relief from the endless, broiling summer makes me feel refreshed and renewed, but my true sense of “New Year” really comes around Halloween — not only because that’s when we get the first crisp, cool nights and it truly feels like fall, but also because it is the traditional and ancient Celtic new year.
I’m happy that you live in a place where you can celebrate the seasons and welcome the arrival of warm weather and not experience horrible, relentless heat for months on end…and then in turn you can welcome the fall.
Real seasons are important. They mark our lives.
This is a lovely post and there are some wonderful comments as well. On a much more frivolous note, here Down Under we start the new year and the school year in Jan (end of Jan for school, after the summer school holidays) – it’s much more sensible down here!
Oh you just describe everything about how I feel about Summer…. and like you I feel like my summer just didn’t “took” either. Hope your rest of the year gets better. Happy Knitting….. oh yeah I am making a blanket too 🙂
I’ve spent the entire summer with my foot up, on the couch… either from a sprain (in June) or with a torn ligament (the week after the 4th of July). I didn’t get summer either (It’s really hard to walk on crutches on sand). So I’m going to enjoy the heck out of fall… altho I’m mostly still off my feet. But Christmas knitting! And lots of ripe fruit, so canning and jams and freezing apples and pears and plums. It’s been a long and cranky summer. I’m hoping fall is better…
You’re in the wrong hemisphere steph! In Australia, summer is the new year, and the school year starts at the end of January. It’s very tidy 🙂
“felt like summer never really “took.” I blame grief for that, and trying to re-create a world that doesn’t have Tupp in it. (At first I typed “didn’t” and then remembered that this is permanent, and made the correction.) We’re faring ok, ”
I’m glad you are “faring ok”. You are my role model as very soon I will have to “recreate a world” without my brother in it. knitting sure helps ease the panic and calm the sadness.
Babies are another good start, a new year, a new life. My baby has a few weeks before making an appearance. I’m hoping for a good fall. It will be weird to spend all of that time off on maternity leave.
Shana Tov!
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