Finally

Is there anyone out there who can build a case against September as the housewife's finest month? Is there anyone out there?

Sure, there is that nagging feeling of sadness, of closure that comes for New

Englanders not in December, when we are already balls deep into winter, but in September, when the trees are still green but have a tattered, destitute greenness that is almost the exact opposite of that chartreuse color that bursts out in May and takes your breath away because summer is coming, after all.

In that sense September is melancholy.

But in all the other ways?

Give me September.

The children, finally, have gone back to school. Trails of abandoned clothing? Fighting? Incessant food preparation and cleaning? It's all over for seven hours per day, during which time a New England housewife can sit with a cup of tea and a newspaper and not be summoned by that double-syllable strident howl of "Maaaa-um". After seven hours alone a woman can easily convince herself that she is a good mother. She has not howled like a shrew once before 4 p.m. When those kids do come home, their teachers have not quite got around to assigning the boatloads of homework that cause all-around meltdown and shrew howling.

The weeds, finally, have given up the fight for supremacy in the gardens. The New England housewife can saunter outside and reliably find her prized heucheras not

surrounded by crabgrass,dandelions and vetch. Finally, annuals flowers have reached the zenith of their short, sweet lives. Lily-pad sized nasturtium leaves become a delicacy for pet lizards and the flowers? Wow. It doesn't matter that in a couple weeks they won't know what hit them, the New England housewife can finally sit and enjoy the show -- rather than cast, produce and edit it.

The bugs, finally, are gone. There may be a sluggish mosquito that finds its way into the New England housewife's home, but it only halfheartedly dive bombs her in her bed and then, the swatting is so very easy she feels something akin to guilt at the lack of sport involved.

The apples, finally, taste the way nature intended. It only takes one snap into an apple picked fresh from a McIntosh tree and even the most skeptical New England housewife believes there could be something to that story about Adam and Eve.

The air, finally, barely registers upon her skin, unless a breeze is blowing. Outside it is not wet; it is not humid, it is not mind-numbingly hot or cold. The daytime mercury rises into the 70s and then graciously falls into the 40s and 50s at night when

the New England housewife wants to sleep. When she rises in the morning the warmth of the pond and the cool of the air create an otherworldly tableau through the double sliding glass door in the living room. Once again her humidity-swollen doors close, the mold-laden basement dries and ceases to smell like the sports clothing that comes from the bottom of the children's unexplored gym bags.

The work, finally, is at an ebb.

The quiet, the calm, the rest, the air, the sheer perfection of New England's one gentle month? It's all way too temporal. In short order (can anyone say "rapidly approaching holiday season", shoveling, wood hauling, homework galore), September will be a distant memory. But for now, September, there is just this one month of quiet and perfection. Just one. Finally.

Comments

[Bad Home Cook]

You live in such beauty, cousin. Those pictures make me want to buy a plane ticket asap.

And you're such a good writer, too. Still and always jealous.

thirdly, my son is a budding gardener. I need to ship him out to spend a month with you when it's time to sow the seeds so you can show him the gardener ropes. He's quiet, reads, and doesn't ever scream....