This is my favorite month of the year. It’s a month of fresh beginnings and lingering pleasures, when the sun is still warm, the mornings cool, and a sense of anticipation is in the air.

The breeze lifts the curtains at the windows, the streets are quiet, the children are in school wearing shoes unsullied by the stress of a hundred recesses. Their notebooks still have covers, their lunchboxes don’t smell yet, and the year is like a shiny copper penny in their pockets.

The days are shorter but not yet short. The stars gleam before bedtime and the sun is up but not too high as we walk to the bus stop each morning. There’s a delicate balance to each day, as if the yearly pendulum has paused ever so briefly in the sweetest point of its arc.

The leaves are still green, but a few are yellow and falling. The trees whisper secrets among themselves. Flowers still brighten the gardens, the lawnmowers still whine every Saturday, and the apples are growing fuller and beginning to blush.

The catalogs in the mailbox remind us of the cozy days to come: wool sweaters and rib socks, suede boots and dark jeans. The fireplace yawns in the living room and prepares to welcome fall. The cranberry sofa is full of comfort and promises. A stack of books grows next to my favorite chair.

Leaning out the window over a landscape dotted with brick cottages, stone streets, green gardens and golden fields, my mouth whispers, “Soon,” and my heart answers “Not yet.”

September 7, 2005