Following through on “autumn plans”

Late this summer I wrote a post about autumn plans.  Virginia Woolf and her sister Vanessa Bell made what they called “autumn plans” and I was smitten by the idea.  Woolf writes:

I always think of those curious long autumn walks with which we ended a summer holiday, talking of what we were going to do – ‘autumn plans’ we called them.  They always had reference to painting and writing and how to arrange social life and domestic life better … They were always connected with autumn, leaves falling, the country getting pale and wintry, our minds excited at the prospect of lights and streets and a new season of activity beginning – October the dawn of the year.

Virginia and Vanessa, when they were still the Stephen sisters.

I always felt like fall was the real start of the new year and for many years it was — the start of the school year — first as a student and then as a teacher.  But now I am neither (neither was Woolf) and autumn plans seem even more important.

I never made a formal list of my autumn plans, but I have done some things that fit the category — things that have been amazingly helpful.

The main thing was

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Back to school

It still feels a bit funny not to be going back to school.  I was in grade school, high school, college, grad school and then back to college, this time as a teacher, for so many years that it seemed like I would always be going back to school.  But not for some years now.

I quit teaching to write full time, and then I had twins (who will not be in school, pre- or otherwise, for at least another year).

I miss shopping for back-to-school clothes and picking out notebooks and pens and folders and such.

I miss the fresh-start feeling of a new school year — all those clothes unworn, all those pages bare, all that potential hovering in the late summer air.  But

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Thinking about “autumn plans”

It’s a Saturday morning in late summer.  The air feels heavy, and not just with the weight of humidity and the drone of cicadas.  Summer’s tired.

Many of you are out and about this morning.  There are walks to take while the air is still cool, farmer’s markets to browse, pancakes to eat, games to play, errands to run, chores to do.  Many of you will not read this post until later — perhaps tonight, more likely tomorrow night, possibly not even until the first lull of your workday Monday morning.

But I’m at my desk while the twins nap in the next room, thinking about autumn, and starting to make plans.

Virginia and Vanessa.

Virginia Woolf and her sister Vanessa Bell made what they called “autumn plans.”

Woolf recalled:

“I always think of those curious long autumn walks with which we ended a summer holiday, talking of what we were going to do – ‘autumn plans’ we called them.  They always had reference to painting and writing and how to arrange social life and domestic life better … They were always connected with autumn, leaves falling, the country getting pale and wintry, our minds excited at the prospect of lights and streets and a new season of activity beginning – October the dawn of the year.”

I don’t have a sister to walk with.  And walking while pushing a stroller isn’t really conducive to planning creative work.  But

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