September the Beautiful
On Being Alive... and... Permission to Pause
Ahh, September. The ninth month of the year is officially here.
Until now, I always associated September with “back to school” (even though I left long ago). It’s the month that proclaimed: “Summer’s over! No more fun!” accompanied by feelings of dread, doom and gloom. I grew up in England, a country not known for its sunny weather, so I have many memories of arriving back at boarding school for the new academic year dressed in dreary uniform, dragging my feet to lessons under pregnant grey clouds that spat, drizzled, and burst out in spurts. Not a chink of light in sight. Inside I’d be crying.
July and August are my favorite months. Not only is summer the best season (IMO, to use a millennial acronym), but some of my favorite people were born in July, which also happens to be the month of my birth. Back in the years of school holidays, August was just an extension of summer fun and freedom, and now it holds a special place in my heart as it’s the month I got together with (in the year 2020) and then married (in 2022) the Love of my Life.
Each calendar month evokes an emotion within me, usually related to the weather, but also connected to people/a person. Having so many family members, their birthdays fall on all but one of the twelve, (the barren month being March), and whenever a new month rolls around, I can’t help but think about whoever’s just turned around the sun. When you have as many relatives as I do, there will inevitably be a lot of complicated relationships riding a Ferris wheel of feelings with varying perspectives.
So, back to September, the month I used to think was such a downer, encroaching on and spoiling the last days of August with “back to school” anxiety, those most unwelcome feelings. I was chugging along that familiar train of thought right up until two weeks ago when I caught myself, or rather, my inner critic (we all have one—the voice inside that nags, niggles, and needles us) and made a decision to rewrite the negative narrative.
If you read my last post, you might recall I made an announcement—(to all 99 of my dearly held subscribers, I appreciate every single one of you for being here and am so glad that number is relatively low during my still figuring-it-all-out phase)—declaring that on 1st September, I would be relaunching my Substack. I doubt you were holding your breath or even noticed, but that didn’t/hasn’t yet happened.
As a teenager in the ‘90s, I used to devour fashion magazines, stacking them up around my bedroom like they were collectors’ items (which I’m sure some of them were). If I hadn’t gone into modeling, I would probably have become an editor. Earlier this summer, I did a course on how to create a Digital (Substack) Magazine. I had great fun designing a logo and wordmark for ‘Double English’, (if you are reading this in your email, you’ll have seen the one-off banner with the pink typewriter that I created) and, by the course’s end, I was brimming with so many ideas I decided to go back to the drawing board and change everything: the name, the look, the feel…
Inspired and motivated, I imagined spending the whole of August working away so that on 1st September, I could send out the inaugural issue (newsletter) of my very own online glossy magazine. It had to be September, of course, because that’s “back to school” month when everyone is hard at work.
Five days before the relaunch, I was stressed and nowhere near ready. Instead of allowing the inner critic to call me a failure and all the other rubbish that’s been on repeat for longer than I can remember, I decided to give myself permission to pause, reassess the timeline, and postpone the relaunch until 1st October. I am aware that as a self-employed freelancer, nobody is monitoring, judging, or pecking at me other than my pesky inner critic, the same culprit that sparks the September anxiety in August.
My husband helped me reframe the negative narrative of the “oh shit here comes September”, reminding me that we are still in what is quite possibly one of the prettiest places in America. He told me to stop stressing, get outside, and enjoy myself. And that’s exactly what I have been doing.
Now that The Hamptons crowds have dispersed, September has brought out the beauty of Southampton. It is joyfully quiet, (no more gridlock traffic or rowdy partygoers) and, to use a summer trend word, demure. No Bunstockings to be seen.
Not only has this been the best summer of my life in terms of personal growth and healing, but also The Most Beautiful September. I am reveling in the sights of Mother Nature: glorious sun-dappled mornings and bountiful, luscious greenery, breathtaking sunsets, and Labor Day’s New Moon brought a star-studded nightscape not even a professional astrophotographer could capture.
Some fleeting moments are only meant to be seen with the eyes and remembered in the mind, like the stupendous view of those bright gems in the sky from the beach on Labor Day night, or my recent face-to-face encounter with a hummingbird. They are life’s glimmers—moments of pure joy or profound peace that inspire sheer awe of being alive.
Afternoons and evenings have been idled away in the garden witnessing celestial masterpieces of swifts and swallows dancing and weaving through the air in divine synchronicity to the harmony of birdsong and chirping cicadas. Against an ever-changing canvas of orange, pink, and blue, hawks soar above towering trees of every shape and shade of green. Lower down, dragonflies glide, butterflies flit, and fireflies flare as Golden Hour dims and fades to night.
This Wednesday was by far the most perfect summer’s day of the past three months. Marveling at a cloudless, cerulean sky, Danny and I headed to a near-empty Cryder Beach, the water a vast glass expanse, baby waves crawling and crashing gently against the shore. We stayed for hours; I lost track of time and space as I floated and frolicked in the ocean. I was a child again, dreamy and fearless, in bliss with the stillness.
Emerging from my long saltwater bath, I sat cross-legged on a towel, lulled into a meditative state as I listened to the rhythmic waves peppered with distant calls of gulls. Warmth from the sun blended with the coolness of the breeze, caressing my face, subtle scents of marine life wafting under my nose. As I gazed at the glistening lake-like ocean, I thought about my newest family member, who shares a name with a unique water body between Europe and Asia, often described as the world’s largest lake.
Next weekend, on 14th September, my sweet little nephew Caspian will celebrate one full year of being alive.
I've always found September more transformative than January. It feels like the years turn and shift from around September.
Beautiful poet