If I ran the world — and we must all pause here and be grateful I don't — the New Year would begin on Labour Day, that wonderful day-long intake of breath before the plunge into fall with its busyness and many demands.
This is the first year in decades that today didn't involve getting someone ready for school. No backpacks, university dorms or student apartments, no shopping for linen, books or sharp knives (culinary school), no odd food for packed lunches.
Instead, the day was spent alone on the back porch overlooking but not working in the gardens and breaks in the quiet house packing up things I am ready to live without: novels I won't find time or passion to read, clothes that don't suit the future, sheets or dishes of more use to others.
This is a good day, a gift, one blessed with sweet memories of the summer just gone.
Happy Fall everyone!
