Letter 3

Dear you,

September. The only month beginning with the letter S. The month in which I celebrate my mother's birthday. The month in which autumn begins, and my seasonal jolliness is in.

As someone who gets incredibly cold (can’t sleep with just one blanket in the winter), my obsession with the colder months may confuse some. But it’s because they don’t see it the same as I do. In both fall and winter, despite the outer chill, there is inner warmth.

I grew up in New York. September was the first chill, time to break out the sweaters. In my young mind, the cool air made me think of winter on its way, which then led to the giddy feeling for the holidays. Vacation. Fireplaces. Hot cocoa. Snow. Everything good in life.

Before everything hibernated, when the leaves still belonged to autumn, my parents would take me and my siblings for a family hike on Sundays. The drive was long, but time was never felt. Music played as we covered miles of blurred pavement down windy, shaded roads. The sun was shy, but every so often, a strong, blinding hello greeted us.

Our destination was marked when we stopped in the middle of the road, waiting for passing cars. A left turn was then made down a steep, narrow road. Slowly, our tires rolled on a flat gravel parking lot. Can you hear it too?

Barely able to unlock the car, we were already shoving each other out of it. Our feet smacked against the pebbles beneath us as we raced to the open lake in the short distance ahead. We would run for hours through the woods, along the edge of the water. We picked colorful leaves off the ground, collecting a bagful to bring back home and glue onto paper. We thought this was considered a piece of art, but what it actually did was capture the day in memory.

At home, as the days got shorter and the first snowfall was anticipated way too early, the four of us (my siblings and I) would begin collecting firewood, competing to see who could gather the most. I was a very competitive child. I was quiet about it, but I most certainly was.

Behind our home, we had a flat green lawn. When continuing to the end, though, a sudden steep slope awaited and led down to a creek. Across it, mystical once to my youthful eyes, was a wooded area. There, one of the years, after hopping across large stones in between the running water, I found a small tree that had fallen. I dragged it back across the water, up the dirt slope, and then across my property. Go big or go home. I did both.

Our fireplace was the first to smoke in the crisp air as the snow softly fell from the sky. My siblings and I would pile all the spare blankets in the house onto the carpeted floor and bring our pillows down. When the time came for bed, nothing could budge us to go to our own rooms. We would all fall asleep on the blankets as the fire still danced on the logs, and its partnering shadows tried to keep up on the walls. I can still smell it all.

When the morning would come, we would have warm cereal, letting the perfect, hypnotic blanket of whiteness remain just a little longer. When we would finish, though, we would get layered up, our mother helping us all tuck our gloves under our coat bands so the snow wouldn’t get in. It was a process since all of us required her patient help. We would all heat up to almost unbearable temperatures, that as soon as we could, we raced out of the door to fall in the cold snow.

We would be outside for hours. Our parents would have to call us in because we were too wet, and they didn’t want us getting sick. Inside, the boots were kicked off, snowpants and coats stripped, leaving us in the pajamas from the night before that we had never changed out of.

Around the house, we would run around in thick socks, intentionally sliding on the hardwood floors. Sometimes cookies were baked, games were played, blocks were used to build, and childlike bickers were broken up. It was all fantastic. Wonderful. A rosy memory – almost as red as our winter cheeks – that I carry today.

Through all these years, I still love the thick socks. The sweaters that swallow me whole. The redness of my cheeks after meeting the crisp air. The feeling of the sun coming through a glass window. The day I stay inside to read a book. Sitting on top of someone for cuddles. Winter may be full of storms and grey skies, but in my heart, it is the warmest season of all.

So, how do you feel about the month of September? Is it not just a complete beauty?

Goodbye for now, you lovely stranger.

Yours Truly,

RCG