It is with great sadness that I enter into the last week of September. September is my month. My favorite. Always has been. Always will be. (I will never understand Green Day.)

I don’t think it’s just because I was born in September, although there is some alchemy there: I was born on the 9th day of the 9th month, thus also begetting my favorite number. I am all about the number 9.

September is the new January, or so Gretchen Rubin says in her book Happier at Home. With a flip of the calendar comes a return to schedule, to school and to sweaters and socks.

Even so, there’s still the chance of those welcome leftover days of summer sneaking in. Last Sunday, Rick and I walked in downtown Edmonton towards a open-air market and a gallery tour on 124th Street. The sunshine was perfect – perfect in temperature and perfectly lighting up the colors of autumn all around us. It was the kind of day in which you congratulate yourself for being outside. Driving back home to Vermilion later that afternoon, the fields along Highway 16 heavy with felled swathes and populated with thousands of geese, it felt like time was standing still. A perfect September day. A gift.

For me, school always starts in September. Even if the calendar messed up somehow and our presence was absurdly requested on August 30 or something, everyone knew that brains didn’t really engage until after the Labor Day weekend. I still feel like I should be in school come September. I loved school when I was growing up – or at least the Utopian idea of school. Every September started out in an amnesia-like stupor, with the month throwing its spells of beauty at me and every year I believed that this year would be the greatest ever. But alas, there was always physics and bullies and soggy sandwiches – none of which I could ever blame September for. It was probably October’s fault.

If there was any angst when the school bus dropped me off, solace could be found in the September garden when the time of the tomatoes arrived in full force. I’m with Julia Child: nothing beats a tomato sandwich on white bread with plenty of mayo and salt and pepper. Menu planning was easy – corn on the cob, cucumbers in vinegar, more tomatoes and new potatoes rounded out September birthday meals.

Because September is our family’s birthday month – not just mine, but three of my six siblings were also born in September, plus nieces and nephews and cousins. So many birthdays that my mom often would economically give my son, born the day before my birthday, and me one card to share. There was just an abundance of birthdays. Hallmark, and Mom, couldn’t keep up.

I will enjoy the rest of the month as it comes – even though today it’s windy and wet. I will pray for good harvest weather but I will enjoy the last dregs of my favorite month, next weekend’s commitments taking me down those same roads that took me to school. I know it will be good because September hasn’t let me down yet.