Katie Brandenberg: Falling for a new season: 8/27/10

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August 27, 2010

Katie Brandenberg The Independent The Daily Independent Fri Aug 27, 2010, 12:17 AM EDT

ASHLAND — I’m happy to say that my time of year has finally arrived. There’s been something in the air this week — a smell, a feel. It’s something crisp and cool and, well, uniquely autumn. Though the official beginning of the season won’t happen for several more weeks, the weather is making me feel like it’s come early.

Autumn for me is a season of self-improvement, resolutions and new beginnings. It’s probably that my head is still stuck somewhere in the school calendar. I feel the need to go out and buy school supplies and organize my desk. I get a surge of energy from the crackle of leaves under my feet.

I want bouquets of freshly sharpened No. 2 pencils wrapped in reams of crisp, dense textbook pages. I want new pens and folders and blank notebooks begging to be filled and a fresh box of 64-count Crayola crayons because I see the kids in the store buying them and I’m jealous. I mean, there are 64 colors. What’s not to like?

I never really attached myself to the idea of New Year’s resolutions or spring cleaning. New Year’s happens in the deep, dark pitch of winter when we are all huddled up inside our houses with family, friends and an ungodly amount of food. Instead of planning for self improvement I’m more inclined to eat and drink myself into a coma so I can do as nature intended and hibernate. Pass the Christmas cookies, please. I’m storing up for a long winter.

And spring, let’s face it, is just a prelude to summer. Even if it’s one of those years where you get snow flurries in March, mentally I’m thinking about the upcoming season of lounging in the sun poolside or on a beach and turning a lazy mind to insubstantial summer paperback novels and magazines with the latest pop culture disaster on the cover.

But fall is different. With the first gust of cool air my mental clock is reset and I know it’s time to get down to business. I’m lucky to have a job that sates my curiosity a little bit each day. But if I’m honest, in the flurry of a new job and a new apartment, I haven’t been spending my free time in the most productive way.

There are several serious works of nonfiction on my bookshelf that I can feel giving me the evil eye every time I pick up a thrice-read mystery paperback instead. There’s also at least one unfinished novel of my own wasting away in the depths of my computer’s memory that could definitely stand to be pulled out, dusted off and put to use.

I seem to have forgotten the pleasures of serious study. Not that I ever enjoyed writing endless papers or cramming for exams — I’m not a glutton for punishment — but I have always loved immersing myself in a brand new subject. Now that the fall air is blowing and the leaves will soon be falling, I feel that lack and I’m determined to correct it. Being a new college graduate does not mean I am giving up mental self improvement. I’m going to take advantage of the fresh burst of energy that comes with the change of the season.

KATIE BRANDENBURG can be reached at kbrandenburg@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2653.

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