Oh blessed sun. What a joy it is to have the luxury of this extended run of sunshine. In fact, it is all the yummier for being unexpected. Just as we had begun to give in to thoughts of winter, Mother Nature gives us a gift of warmth.
Now I love September. It is one of my favourite months. This has a lot to do with my student days. Unlike most universities, Edinburgh Art College started the new term in September. I can still taste the anticipation, feel the tingle of excitement at the prospect of returning to my studies, returning to Edinburgh.
Edinburgh is a most beautiful city. It has filled my life and made me who I am. It also holds a lot of difficult emotions for me now. And that makes me sad. But when September comes, no matter where I am, I am filled with the same rush of joy that I felt some 27 years ago.
When I breathe September's fresh breath, when I see the first leaves begin to turn their jewel-like hue, I am transported back to the days when all of life lay in front of me and every moment was filled with potential.
One of my dear husband's favourite sayings is: "Experience - you can't buy it, and you can't learn it. You have to live it." And at 45 I am grateful for the experience my life has provided. I enjoy the wisdom and perspective that the years have brought me.
I have tried never to look back with regret. Regret is such a wasted emotion. The life has been lived, the experience gained, and all that can be done is to learn from it, atone for it, in the here and now.
And yet, when September comes - with its misty mornings and its lapiz lazuli skies - my heart soars and I am momentarily sad for my lost youth, and for the innocence that can never be recaptured. What a joy it was to have no responsibilities, to have no past, to have nothing to do but to express my creativity and try life on for size.
And now I am smiling - at my sentimentality and at the worldly-wise woman that I have become. And I am smiling at the thought of my own son, now started on his own journey of discovery, his own educational path.
As I have remarked often, life goes forward. And as the lovely George Harrison once sang:
Sunrise doesn't last all morning
A cloudburst doesnt't't last all day
Seems my love is up and has left you with no warning
Its not always going to be this grey
All things must pass
All things must pass away
Sunset doesnt't't last all evening
A mind can blow those clouds away
After all this, my love is up and must be leaving
Its not always going to be this grey
All things must pass
All things must pass away
All things must pass
None of lifes strings can last
So, I must be on my way
And face another day
Now the darkness only stays the night-time
In the morning it will fade away
Daylight is good at arriving at the right time
Its not always going to be this grey
All things must pass
All things must pass away
All things must pass
All things must pass away
And so September has passed once more. But the memories of those heady days live on in me.
