I will confess; it’s my second year out of college and I still go back-to-school shopping.
Every year, my mom takes me and my brother to the nearest office supply store, and we rave over 79-cent notebooks and colored ballpoint pens. Last year, my mom and I bought matching sparkly calculators (hers pink, mine silver) that I am happy to say still work.
At the same time that I eagerly anticipate this annual ritual, I’m in no rush for summer to officially end. When it turned frigid a week ago, during the last few days of August, (and dipped to a bone-chilling 56 degrees as an overnight low), I mourned the beginning of winter. I turned the heat on in my car. I ran out and bought a pair of boots. I walked around my house wrapped in a down blanket and Googled warmer living locations.
Despite this, autumn is still my favorite season.
Heralded by the annual excursion to Office Max to stock up on binders, Sharpies, and crisp, paper folders, it brings a sense of routine that the summer can never deliver.
Unlike other kids my age, I never experienced the dread of the start of the school year. Maybe it was because I was homeschooled, because I was an absolute bookworm, or because of some innate appreciation of the smell of fresh pencils and paste. I can remember waiting with anticipation for my school curriculum to arrive in a big yellow box in the mail and sifting through the textbooks and workbooks stuffed into the cardboard cube. It’s true; I didn’t always want to buckle down to work (especially with my best friend living down the block or when I wanted to read the latest Harry Potter book), but something about the unused supplies and the crack sound when opening a new English novel was always exciting. My enthusiasm never ended; even when I was in college, I would stop at Target each autumn for school supplies, if only for a 24-count box of Crayola crayons.
As an adult, autumn is different; there is less newness and more memories. My personal endeavors, jobs, and routines don’t always line up with the changing leaves. Instead, my activities often mirror, consciously and subconsciously, my past autumns. It’s why I want to go apple picking, why I look forward to eating pumpkin-flavored everything, and why the changing weather is bearable. Last fall, which was my first year out of school, I decided I would allow myself to buy a brand new book (as opposed to borrowing one for free at my library), as a throwback to the autumns of the past. I went with Pride and Prejudice.
Even on a smaller cyclical scale, the fall always brings back memories, some relatively short-term. The other day, I was listening to the radio in the car, and a hit song from last autumn came on the radio. It brought me back to everything I experienced last September: the pumpkin latte from the new café in town, the room with the yellow walls I lived in at the time, the beginning of some questions about my life to which I now know the answer. In the fall, the leaves lose color, but our memories gain it.
While I will never forgive fall for always leaving us with winter, I will continually let autumn arrive again and again.
