Reflections on September

September has always been a pleasant time of year for me. It’s usually a time for a fresh start and the return to simpler routines after a hot, rowdy, busy summer. Imagine by confusion, (not to mention a simmering sense of anger), when on the radio came a DJ who kept playing sad songs to lament the end of summer- as if there were something wrong with a Fall picnic, or a relaxing walk through the forest on a cool afternoon, listening to the Autumn breeze brush through the leaves as they turn colours and repaint the scenery. How quickly we are to ignore this beauty in pining for the hot sun of yesterday.

This time last year, I was sitting in the Great Hall of my former University, reminiscing. I had graduated seven years ago, but having been pushed in before getting my plan of life together, I had now returned to pick up a few of the pieces and point myself in the right direction (wherever that was). The ghosts of the past were all visiting- some pleasant, others not. It was the more pleasant ghosts which spoke to me, for in the Great Hall I had directed my first play as a student way back when. I remembered a couple of my acting buddies, and my acting professor, and remembered what I was passionate about. Throughout this semester, I would sit in the Great Hall, read Emerson, and write a few scenes of a play or two, and let my mind return to the place it had been all those years ago. And it came back to me- the acting, the writing, the passion for telling a story and sharing an experience. It never left me, but it reawakened there, in that place, as I wrote.

I loved the feel of universities, especially in September: a new start, new people, new beginnings. The feeling of ‘what will ever happen next?’ was incredibly exciting back then.  And I suppose it should be now. But as I sat in the Great Hall, having just passed my youth, with swarms of early twenty-somethings buzzing by me- all still fit, healthy, full of energy, and having all their lives ahead of them- I certainly didn’t feel as though I belonged. I felt more like I should be a professor by now, or have more show of success in my directions. I looked back at all the time which has gone by, and all I have accomplished, and all I had yet to accomplish, all the time I had wasted doing what I didn’t want to do, and all the time which was spent not having the chance to do what I wanted to do. Then I looked to the future… there’s still so much more time, and much I still wanted to experience.

Sure enough, these students, with their budding relationships, and fresh new starts, may have their lives ahead of them, and may seem more free with their time, and I do envy them to some extent. With September ending, it seems even more reason not to pine for those hot, sunny days of yesterday, but to continue using them to step forward into something fresh and exciting- for time still slips away into tomorrow, but tomorrow can bring something new.