September
One minute you’re eighteen with endless possibilities, and then you fall asleep one night and when you wake up you’re married, have two kids and are standing in Marks & Spencer’s Blue Harbour department contemplating a nice sensible coat for the winter. Nothing wrong with that you might say, but somehow back in the 60’s when I was discovering earth-shattering things like Jimi Hendrix and the unhooked brassiere, I sort of thought that the next few decades would hold something a little different for me.
Life soured early on when an immature romance resulted in a badly chosen marriage. Bad for both of us. This should have been a shortish relationship ending naturally to nobody’s real pain, but sadly ended up an uncomfortable and elongated tragedy which finally became an unseemly wrangle over possessions and money, teaching us both that people are not what they initially seem.
Recovering from that I passed gently through the period when I realised that the small bald patch on the top of my head was getting bigger, and then, shockingly, that this lack of hair on the top of my head was counterbalanced by the growth of luxuriant and prominent hair from my nose and ears. I got through the difficulty of accepting that a 30 waist was gone forever and that getting drunk now left its fearful mark on my well-being as it had not done when I was younger.
It’s all about decisions really. It shouldn’t take too much to make the right decisions in life, you need full knowledge of the facts, no distractions and some clear thinking. You know those days when you seem able to clearly cut through the fudge and fur of things, and of course you need sunshine because sunshine makes everything better.
I agree that the sunshine bit may seem random, but sunshine is so important, as the flora around you grows and responds to the sun’s rays, so do you; well I do anyway. My head is like a solar panel, soaking up the warmth and goodness, and it makes me feel great.
But in September we see reducing sunlight, less warmth and worst of all, there are no more English cherries available in the shops. The season starts in early summer with cherries from North Africa and then Spain, the place of origin slowly moving northwards until English cherries arrive on the scene bursting with their unique and wonderful flavour and putting all other cherries to shame. But they are no longer available now and it’s ten bitter, cherriless months before we see them again.
And in September we can feel the onset of Autumn, and the thoughts of all those cold mornings to come, the bitter wind and the rain are depressing. But on a more positive note it’s a great opportunity to wear hats and scarves and big boots, so there is some relief in being able to resort to wider sartorial considerations that the tee shirts and shorts of summer just don’t allow.
And in life too it’s Autumn for us, both kids have left home and we’ve got the house back and we love it. We spread out and enjoy all the space, we go out to dinner together every Friday night, it’s like a whole new life. We’ve done our jobs, launched two new people into the world to the best of our abilities, and it’s time to enter a new phase of life.
I’ve always written, I have files of ideas and beginnings that have remained untouched for years, and now with all this extra time I’ve found, let’s see what happens.
