If I can, I choose sweet

It is late afternoon, late in August. The day is overcast and the air feels cool. I'm listening to the sound of my children destroying their markers by coloring roughly over a long cardboard box that, two days ago, contained all the pieces for the bookshelf that was assembled (by Matt) and filled/organized (by me) on Sunday night. I should probably tell them that their frenetic scribbling will smoosh the tops of those markers right down, dry them out, and otherwise wreck them, but they are having so much fun "decorating" together that I can't find it in me to be too bothered. This is a favorite game of theirs. They will scribble and scribble and scribble until the box is completely colored in, and then it will become a fort of some sort, and I will tolerate it until I can't anymore. I might be able to let this one go until the weekend; Saturday mornings are good for building structures out of cardboard, our dining room chairs, couch cushions, and some blankets. But this box is too long for me to allow it to take up half of my living room for more than a few days.

My children are talking to each other and mostly cooperating, but my house seems quiet all the same. It's the gray of the afternoon, the quiet that seems to fall over my neighborhood on such days. It's a cozy little prelude to fall.

There comes a moment late in August when I feel a palpable shift from something like Sunday afternoon anxiety to something else -- a combination of optimism and excitement and anticipation of September, the beginning of fall, my favorite season. Maybe it's just that I love the turning of the seasons, and that's why at some point I stop mourning the end of summer and look forward to what comes next. It's a peaceful sort of resignation, I guess. We had a perfect summer, really, full of outdoor play and sunshine-filled weekends and a fabulous family vacation. I read a lot of books and ran a lot of miles. My children are lean and tan. So it's not at all that I wouldn't want to prolong that; the end of summer is always a little bittersweet. It's just -- you know, nothing gold can stay and all that, and I feel like choosing to be all grumpy about the end of summer is only going to make these last days more bitter than sweet. If I can, I choose sweet.

I wrote this last year:

September is nothing like Monday. September is golden, optimistic, hopeful. September is warmth and crunchy fall leaves and the transition from shorts to sweatshirts. September is a huge box of markers my students haven't yet ruined, it's new shoes, it's stacks of crisp white paper. September is kids who haven't grown too comfortable or too complacent yet. September is settling into a rhythm that hasn't yet become routine, hasn't yet become drudgery. September is falling in love with my life all over again, the way I do every autumn even when I am stressed and overwhelmed and seriously doubting my own competency.

Yesterday, I opened a card from my mother and read this: I'm thinking of you as you get back into the routine & anticipate the start of school, the delight at a fresh start & fresh materials to work with -- blank pages, sharp pencils and crayons, new pens -- enjoy it all!

I'm grateful to have people in my life (my mother, my children, the teacher friends who return to this job again and again with energy and hope instead of grumbling) who know how to tap into this simple joy and encourage me to do the same. It carries me through the first weeks of the school year. And it is sweet.