September First

the magic of between

September is a special month. It is the one that slips by unnoticed if you don't stop and look it square in the eye on the daily.

It is two seasons in thirty days. The greens and yellows of late August transform into oranges, golds and reds in those moments we forget to pay attention. Only the mornings betray the secret staging.

When my kids were little these early September days formed a knot of missing beneath my ribs. It was hard to share my children with school again. But that longing? It came with the gift of gratitude for the time we'd spent together during summer break and the moments we'd have again at the end of the day. Saddling those two truths, embracing the between, was like a ripe garden tomato. Rare and precious. It kept me in gratitude which made our drives home after the final bell rang all the sweeter.

I held gratitude for time to myself again, the freedom to not be a mother or wife or daughter or aunt, but a writer lost in my imagination.

I wrote four books at the curb of different schools as I waited for my kids to be released.

Stolen moments. Scratched in a journal or preserved in my head. That's what September embodies–the sweetness of remembering what was, longing for what will be, scrimping bits of time to preserve stories, or listening as new ones were shared by my kids between bites of after school snacks. Mine, though, were scrawled in ink on the pages of a notebook–imagined places, characters, scenarios, and feelings–that bled together into tales that begged to be written and shared.

I hope.

I hope this.

I hope this September.

I hope this September is the same.

I have a new book, a nonfiction work, in my mental-work-in-progress-file. The title came to me first after my mother asked me to be the one to write her obituary.

Last week, I returned from a trip to Chicago with her. I used my newly minted interview skills to pull stories out of her, and my aunt, and my uncle. We drove the neighborhoods and I tugged at the loose ends of threads they'd hinted at in a side comment, a joke, or a whisper under their breath between bites of dinner.

I'm finding, reclaiming, and in some instances, introducing stories of relatives long-dead to a modern world, one Find-A-Grave-entry at a time and maybe even writing a book about my life and theirs and how writing someone’s obituary is an opportunity to heal past hurts and forgive and emphasize and love more and love better.

September first is the perfect moment to begin in earnest, to stand with one foot in the past and one in the present to preserve history that would otherwise be unknowable, forgotten, or lost.

My wish is that you and yours have a loving, precious, peaceful, joyous, memorable month ahead and if someone shares their story with you, lean in and listen.        

- Jennifer