The Ancients saw (as some peoples still see) autumn as the beginning of the year: one’s calendar started when one reaped the harvest. The year began not in the bleak months of winter, but amid the earth’s bounty, made greater through cultivation. Even now, our school year traditionally begins in deference to an agricultural schedule.
I’m neither a farmer nor an academic (nor yet so old that one might link me to the ancient world), but I do love the fall, this short and beautiful season. Years past schooling, September still seems like the beginning of my year. Not spring, but fall: energetic, serious, intense, and hopeful. It’s hopeful precisely because it is full of energy, seriousness, and intensity.
Fall reigns from now until Thanksgiving, for three brief months, during which she invites us to accomplish more than some other peoples will accomplish in a full year. The autumn rush of energy and effort leads us toward that first Tuesday in November, a day that is in so many ways our finest political holiday and marks our greatest political accomplishment.
In our schools and on our campus, thousands will begin this new season excited, but a bit apprehensive, too. One wishes them the best: to work diligently, to compete ferociously, all the while dreaming the grand dreams that give hard work its meaning.
There’s so very much to do, looking out over the months ahead.
This invigorating season, fortunately, makes the work ahead almost easy, and certainly enjoyable.