REAL first post

So, it is fall again.

I love fall. No, I adore fall. Fall feels like me waking up from a long sweaty nightmare.

I'm very northern European in my heritage (Irish, Scots, German, maybe some bastard Breton in there as well), so I burn easily. And I don't tolerate the heat. And I'm a fattish sort of chick so I sweat my way through each summer in a hazy misery of allergies, perspiration, taking two showers a day, and wearing the tiniest lightest cotton dresses that I feel I dare wear. (again: I'm a fattish sort of chick.)

But now it is fall. Fall brings so many good things for me. So many happy memories.

For me, the biggest memory of fall is back-to-school. Now, when I was a kid, back to school was at a sane time of year - after Labor day. And this was in Ohio. So by then, it was starting to get cool, the nights were starting to get longer. (Not like here. We start school - both the local public schools and the university where I teach - in mid August. It's simply miserable. The first year I taught, one day in my office I looked at the calendar - and realized it was weeks still until Labor Day - and it would be even longer until cool weather - and I closed my door, put my head on my desk, and wept.)

Back to school was a big deal when I was a kid. You got new clothes because you usually had grown out of what you had the fall before. And growing out of clothes was kind of a time of rejoicing, because it meant you were getting taller and more mature. (Not like now, when "growing out of" clothes as an adult means you need to hit the treadmill more and the fridge less). And there were the new shoes - stiff, leather, lace-up shoes. SERIOUS shoes for going to school in. (Sneakers were not done when I was a kid. I don't know if it was a general not-done, if it wasn't the fashion yet, or if it was specific to my family. I had very flat, very bad feet as a child and I could see my doctor telling my parents I needed shoes with "support.")

I remember getting saddle shoes or other kind of serious lace-ups. I wore saddle shoes quite late, actually - I think I wore them in 8th grade, long after they had ceased to be cool. (Sadly, the dorky-cool movement developed after I was out of school. I would have been totally down with the geeky-cool look. I could have done that. I could have pulled that off).

There was also the need for new school supplies. This fell into two categories: regular school supplies. (Lined paper, and I remember several years, it was specified that it NOT be "college ruled," which of course made the kids WANT "college ruled" paper, which is just plain old lined paper with narrower lines. Like many things dealing with growing up, it's a disappointment when you actually get to have it.) Regular school supplies also meant pencils. I learned at an early age to be a pencil connaisseur. (or should that be "connaisseuse?" I can feel the ghost of my 7th grade French teacher breathing down my neck). To this day, I will only buy and use Dixon Ticonderoga pencils; all others are inferior. I remember one year - I cannot remember what off-brand pencil my price-conscious dad tried to foist on us, but they were the kind where the lead would break UP IN the pencil and fall out in bits. And so you had to sharpen those things down to NUBS if you wanted to write.

And pens. Again, it was a big deal to be allowed to use a ballpoint pen. A mark of growing up. (I suspect all that kind of stuff has been done away with in the schools now; I can imagine angry parents who didn't read the school-supply lists calling the principal and DEMANDING that Tiffany or Amber or Jeoffrey be allowed to use a ballpoint, because they are "special" and they were promised that they could.)

And then there were the art supplies. Big box for all of them (One year I found an old metal tackle box my mom had used for her own art supplies and got permission to take it; again, I felt cool even if no one else agreed). Crayons. Markers. Blunt scissors. School glue. (Again: NOT Elmer's glue. Elmer's glue was for the junior high kids. It was something to look forward to.). And best of all, some years: colored pencils. My favorite drawing and coloring implement.

And the excitement of getting all this swag, just to go back to school. (I grew up in a family that didn't believe in overindulging the children).

And then the big scary first day, the meet-the-teacher, the see-who's-in-your-class. I rarely had class with my friends; that is perhaps why in part my "best" friend grew away from me (that, and she got invited to eat at the "popular" table in 7th grade). So I don't have a BFF; that new show called "Classmates" or whatever the hell it is that has the tagline that your first friends are your best friends does nothing for me. I don't have any of my first-friends any more; most of them either betrayed me or drifted away. But anyhow. The first day of school. New books. Writing your name inside the front cover, seeing if the kids who had the books before you were the older brothers or sisters of any of your friends. The smell of chalkdust and mimeograph ink new in the room.

And Saturdays were different in the fall; in the summer, you hung around, watching television in your pj's as long as possible.

When I was a 'tween, for several years, we had season tickets for football at the university where my dad taught. And you know, I'm not a huge football fan. I never fully understood the game. But I loved going. I loved the feeling of ritual. I loved going out on a chilly Saturday with a thermos of hot chocolate and a bag of homemade cookies, and sitting in the stands with my parents and my brother and a family that was friends of ours, and cheering when the team did well, and groaning when they did poorly. And I loved the halftime show, with the marching band. I loved the sound of all those crazy songs - from Louie, Louie, to the odd classical piece - arranged for a marching band. (To this day, I still love crazy arrangements of things. And I love Sousa marches). When I hear my own university's marching band rehearsing, it makes me happy. Even if I don't have season tickets and really have no interest in giving up my Saturdays to sit (very likely alone) in the stands and watch students - some of whom are in my classes - some of whom are FAILING my classes - play football. The marching band reminds me of those fall Saturdays.

Even better than that, when I was a tiny child, my parents used to hike, and they took me along.

And I remember that well - or as well as you remember anything from when you were four and five and six. Walking through the big woods, on a path, looking at the big mossy rocks. Looking at the leaves changing color. And being between my mom and my dad, each of them holding one of my hands. My brother - once he had made the scene - asleep in a Snugly on my mom's chest or in a baby-backpack on my dad's back. And I'd hold on to each of their hands, reaching way up. And I'd listen to them talking over my head - often grown-up stuff - and laughing with each other over shared jokes. And it made me feel good. Feel good in a way that I can only appreciate now as a grown-up.

When I was a child, that was the time I felt most safe. No, scratch that. It was the time when I felt totally safe. When the concept of insecurity did not exist for me - I could not fathom anything bad happening because my mom and my dad were there and between them they could take care of anything and everything. And I trusted them totally, trusted in a way I cannot as an adult no matter how hard I try.

And, you know - that I think is really what was meant when Jesus said that we need to become as little children. To have that sense of trust so great and so strong that we cannot fathom badness happening, that we cannot fathom anything separating us from our loved ones - from our Father (or, if you prefer, our Mother).

And so, for me, fall carries all that wrapped up in it - that and more. And it's those memories of the good things of the past that make me love fall, in part, but also the feeling of hope and new beginnings (as a new school year gets underway), the quickening in the blood as the temperature cools.

Some cultures used to start the new year at harvest-time; well they should.