I know it’s move-in week for Cal students by all the telltale signs: more traffic, no parking spaces, a subtle shift in weather. In my backyard, all of a sudden, it’s fall: the dahlias are valiantly trying to force out a few more blossoms, but the leaves are yellow and mildewed from all the summer fog and cooler nights. The roses are out of flowers. The redwood is dropping detritus that lightly floats to the ground in the golden breeze.
We have a new young man named Mitch in the cottage in our backyard. He got into the graduate program in engineering at UC, and when I congratulated him, the look on his face told me that he couldn’t believe his good fortune. He runs most mornings and has a beautiful new bike with a powerful lock. When we walk Mollie at night before bed, the lights from his room shine out from the windows and remind me of when Cooper lived back there after college. We refer to Mitch as The Boy, as in, “The Boy is home.” “The Boy paid his rent.” Which is how we used to refer to Cooper when it was just the two of us.
Fall still feels like new beginnings. After all those years starting a new school year in September, I can’t help feeling that sense of renewal, even if nature is doing the opposite and hunkering down for winter.