Happy New Year!
Happy New Year!
Why the year really begins again in the fall
by Annie Beth Donahue
I’ve always intuitively felt fall was the beginning of a new year. As a child, it made sense that the cycle of the school year dictated your beginnings and endings. Sometime around the end of summer, I’d open the newspaper to find the printed lists of home rooms - my first glimpse of who would be in this year’s supporting cast of “the story of my life.” (Not to mention the power those lists wielded over the destiny of who I would get to sit with at lunch.)
But it wasn’t just the beginning of a new academic year with new classmates and teachers, it was also the time to buy new clothes. Summer’s t-shirts were getting small, and cozy long sleeves and sweaters were hanging from the department store rack. Mannequins stood on display wearing the latest trends. You had a chance to reinvent your style, and therefore who you seemed to be, if you so wanted.
New shows and seasons premiered in the fall. The course of conversation was about to be determined by network television. In our modern streaming culture anything can be watched asynchronously, but back then, when you sat down to watch the first episode of a show, you knew, at the sound of the opening notes of the theme song, all your friends were sitting down to watch it, too. These were ritual actions, performed in community, marking a moment in time.
School may have officially started in late summer, but it didn’t quite have a grip on us until the light changed to golden and the morning air cooled and October hit us with a different smell. “Pay attention. It’s time to get serious now.”
Later in life I learned that the Jewish calendar, unlike our Gregorian one, is tied to the moon and the seasons, and that the fall holiday of Rosh Hashanah is the beginning of the Jewish New Year. Rosh Hashanah is a time for reflection, repentance, and hope. To me, it felt fitting that this time of reflection always falls in September or October.
I’ve also noticed that it is easier to be creative in October. Maybe it’s because of the “just right” weather. Or maybe because things feel more settled in this period of time between summer vacations and busy holiday schedules. But it’s easier to switch into a less frantic mindset. I’m more focused and in touch with my imagination. In fact, I managed to produce the whole first draft of my book in one fall.
The founder of the writing contest, NaNoWriMo apparently had similar feelings about the fall season, too. The first contest was held in July of 1999, but by the next year he had moved it to November.
Don’t get me wrong. I do still get excited about starting new things and making resolutions in January. But those projects tend to be more productivity-driven with a side of guilt. The October new year is always a lot more hopeful.
So if you feel like you’ve gotten behind in your writing endeavors (or maybe your “To Be Read” pile has grown a bit tall), then let this October begin a new year for you. The weather will change. You’ll have an excuse to cozy up indoors a bit more. You’ll no longer be barreling through the year, but wrapping it up. You’ll have a chance to be reflective.
However, if you’ve greeted October still drowning in undone summer projects while facing a frenetic schedule of activities, homework, and impending holiday parties, then take a moment to reset. Read something like Beyond Chittering Cottage, that grounds you in your place in space and time. Before you know it, you’ll feel the weighted blanket of October settling on you. The early-evening darkness will envelop you. And you’ll be moving from one year to the next, starting not with the bang of New Year’s rocket, but with the quiet of a seed, incubating under the earth, beginning its journey to something new.
October 10: Bandersnatch authors and illustrators at Landmark Booksellers in Franklin, Tennessee (11:00 am to noon). Learn more!
November: Above, Not Up release (preorders open in September)
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“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.”
“Anne of Green Gables,” L.M.Montgomery
From the very beginning of your piece, Annie, I thought about that quote and scene in Anne of Green Gables. September has always been to me the beginning of the new year. October is the embrace of it.
Yes my to read pile teeters.