Editorial

A Time for Every Purpose Under Heaven

Each season sets its own mood, though why each makes us feel the way it does can be mysterious. What’s New Year’s doing in the middle of winter, when nothing appears new on the frozen horizon? Why now, as the growth season prepares to shut down, does life feel so full of possibility?

New Year’s rises off the winter solstice, when light turns the tables on darkness and the annual cycle begins anew.

Now, we’re looking ahead to the autumnal equinox, when light and dark are equally balanced. We’re celebrating the harvest, when spring and summer’s labors are made good. We’re remembering all those early September first days of school.

Months from now, school may be old hat, but now it’s as fresh as the air on those gorgeous fall days when humidity plummets and the sky sparkles cerulean blue. You’ve prepared yourself, bought new clothes and school supplies — and now you’re as fresh as a sheet of crisp, blank paper on which the great American novel, the solution to the Bay’s woes or the formula for pollution-free energy may be written.

The promise that we may encounter magic and be catapulted by the encounter into being better and smarter ourselves: That’s what raises our spirits each autumn.

So we feel a twinge of envy for the kids waiting for their school bus and the fresh-faced 18-year-old going off to college. We look at them and remember who we were when we were their age, and we tell ourselves — and anybody else who will listen — our stories.

Then we say good thing learning is a life-long adventure and plunge in.

That’s the spirit that inspires this annual issue of Bay Weekly, which we call 50 Ways to Leave Your Summer. Writing it cures our regret at leaving summer and launches us expectantly into autumn — when, certainly, something wonderful will happen, and we’ll be part of it.

What will it be for you?

Will you finally learn to recognize the calls of your backyard birds this autumn? Will you get off your if-onlys and learn to speak Spanish? Will you sign up for an art class and learn to draw? Or is dancing the adventure you’ll embrace this September? Is this the year you’ll carve a pumpkin equal to your imagination?

Read this issue, and you’ll find 50 possibilities — multiplied by all the ones you imagine for yourself.

We hope you’ll share your autumnal adventures with us. Write us your personal favorite Way to Leave Your Summer, or write us a story, like the two we’ve included, about how you turned a new leaf this year. Editor Sandra Martin is waiting to read them at [email protected].