Hi lovely,
Today you will be getting a special Coach Vesna love letter curated by my partner, Joey. Enjoy!
With love, always,
Vesna
***
As kids, we always dreaded the arrival of September. By Labour Day, the fast pace of a new school year erased the leisurely pace of summer. Suddenly, we had to get up early. Wait for the bus. Homework.
Brutal stuff.
Summers were for relaxing, for letting the day unfold. Year after year we took July and August to explore and build our little worlds, starting with our neighbourhoods, and then eventually our cities and beyond. And even though we knew it was coming, the end of summer always seemed to arrive abruptly, as if for the first time. June turns to September in an instant – no more lazing around, back to school we went.
With the perspective of a few decades, observing my son experience the seasonal transition year after year, I think more and more that this is the time of year that really signifies endings and beginnings. The long, hot days of summer – our reward for enduring the brutal Montreal winter – start wrapping up just as they find their rhythm.
The first stirrings of autumn also meant that the Jewish high holidays were approaching. This coming Friday night marks the beginning of Rosh Hashanah, the new year in the Hebrew calendar (it literally translates to “head of the year”), quickly followed by Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, and Sukkot, the harvest festival. Those holidays provided some respite: the school year may have just started, but we spent a good chunk of its first month enjoying days off, spending endless mornings in synagogue and afternoons enjoying the last dregs of our blessed summer.
Despite living and working in a secular culture, I approach this time of year as a moment of transition, a chance to release whatever regrets have been following me around for the past year, to fill up on sunshine and warm days, to psych up for another Montreal winter, and to be grateful for another trip around the sun.
It is Jewish tradition to wish each other a good and sweet new year – shana tova umetukah, we say in Hebrew. We take apples, whose round shape reminds us that every ending is a beginning, and dip them in honey, as a symbol of this sweetness, which we hope lingers through whatever the new year has in store for us. The new year is followed by a 10-day period leading to Yom Kippur called teshuvah, which is translated as ‘repentance’ but really means ‘return’ – an extended opportunity to meditate on our own shortcomings, to seek forgiveness and atonement for our sins against ourselves and others, to get us back on track for the year ahead.
The promise and potential of the new year first ushers in a moment for personal reflection and rededication to self-improvement. A fitting way to wind down summertime.
So as much as I’ll keep enjoying New Year’s Eve parties and days off around the end of December, I’ll always consider this time of year the real moment for new beginnings.
May you and yours find much sweetness and delight in the year ahead! Shana tova!
The love list:
Watching: Bad Sisters
Reading: Do you remember being born?
Listening: Why are we never satisfied?