la rentrée
FROM THE RAYON ARCHIVE -- SEPTEMBER 30, 2024
In France, la rentrée is the time in which everyone comes back from their August holidays and goes back to work and school. Paris goes from a ghost town (read more about that here in an article I wrote for Messy Nessy Chic!) to a bustling metropolis once again. Here in Maine, the traditions look a bit different but the feeling is the same. Cool air, sweaters pulled out of storage, new studies beginning or work projects resumed, the tinge of orange in the trees and the resuming of schedules. September is a sigh of relief as we all settle back into our rhythms after being run dry by the heat and social engagements of summertime.
In fact, the month has revealed itself over time to be a favorite of mine. The Septembers of my youth signified something beyond resuming classes. It was resuming a place in the world that my siblings and parents didn't inhabit. Having older, homeschooled siblings and busy, divorcing parents, my life at school felt entirely separate, entirely my own. No one worried about what was going on when I left for class, and outside of the occasionally missed bus or that one time my mom found a crumpled up flunked geometry exam in the trash, no one criticized me when I fucked up. I could move on quietly and develop my own set of standards. I cared a lot about my school friends, about finding love, making art, and being embarrassingly moved to tears by my friends' skills as musicians, actors, and hockey players. September was a month of independence; of getting ice cream with the gang and going to the beach at night before it got too cold; of remembering the end of the last school year when G threw a party and wondering where that guy you made out with in the car afterward ended up; of catching up with who broke up over the summer, who lost their virginity, and who was, somehow, exactly the same. Stories of drinking and failed driver's exams and who got busted for smoking pot all came to the surface and it was kind of nice to just exist somewhere in the middle of all that. To figure out who you were going to be this school year while desperately cranking out the neglected summer reading.
Latin building, Thornton Academy
La rentrée is intrinsically tied to grade school, so it makes sense that the phenomenon doesn't feel the same as an adult. But nonetheless, September continued to feel like a time to start fresh. In September of 2016 I left home for Washington and went clean across the country to the north-westernmost corner. September of 2017 found me enrolling in college in Portland, Maine (the West Coast thing didn't stick), and J and I started going out in September 2018. I left Maine for Paris in September of 2021, J and I moved in together in September of 2022 and we were engaged in September 2023. This September, we were married by the sea at J's family house on an island off the coast of Maine.
Here we also call September: local's summer. The post-Labor-Day period of warm weather when many of the tourists have left, the sun is still shining and the state is ours again. It can be a bit cold (but we're used to that) the tails of southern hurricanes can make the weather a bit stormy (but we're used to that as well!), though mostly it's not. Mostly, it's marvelous.
Photo by Ami Savage
The end of another summer and the end of my time as a Bride™️ is a realigning time. The wedding was awesome and it is over, and now the future opens up ahead of me with a kind of mysterious pull. I am drawn inexplicably into this new time, a time to let go of everything I've been holding onto desperately. There's no more, "What if I need this... (cup, blanket, pencil sharpener, etc) for the wedding?" Girl, just get rid of it!!
In fact, we are downsizing considerably because J and I are moving out of our apartment. The bright, railroad-style flat we've called home for over two years is emptying slowly as our friends pick away at our belongings and I try desperately to sell clothing at local thrift stores. What is next in a big way is unknown. I can say that we are moving to a carriage house up the coast where we will be bringing two suitcases, our sound system, and all our leftover wedding liquor to ride out the winter. What comes after that? Part of the mystery.
In my suitcase: my towering to-be-read pile of books, flannel pyjamas A + E got me from Marks & Spencer, a bundle of sage from New Mexico, my coffee grinder, the red-work quilt I've been working on for 2 years, wool socks, my dad's L.L. Bean coffee mug, cashmere sweaters, my favorite vegetable peeler, and silver candlestick holders. Everything else has got to go.
It will not be easy though, will it? No matter how much September forces you pack up your summer clothes and shed what is weighing you down, there is still a sadness in departing with things that signify an era of your life. The era of Portland. Of returning home completely lost after Paris; of stumbling home after one last nightcap at CBG, of watching the idiotic young seagulls topple from their roof nests in the spring, of running into everyone you know when you're out to dinner, of running into that one person you really don't want to run into; the era of making a home with J, for the first and not last time. I think at times, I have conflated the feelings and memory of these moments with stuff, the beautiful and physical things of our life on State Street. Bookshelves that J built are his love for me, how could I strip them off the walls? What if we completely forget the holiday that we spent in Nova Scotia because we donated the souvenir mug? Without the crappy, mismatched silverware set that we actually hate, how will we appreciate the time we have spent piecing together a home?
A lesson from Paris? The feeling of this moment is forever a time capsule inside of you. It's funny how we incessantly and frantically document our lives so as not to forget anything, when I sometimes actually feel quite ostracized from my memory of things due to photos. An example: we all have that childhood "memory" that we're not sure if we actually remember it or if there's just a family photo of it that is so iconic that it has fused into your mind as memory.
Dinner parties at State Street, photo by David Longley
My friend K once said that, to her, January is a time of hibernation and calm and in general, a very uninspiring time to set resolutions. Though I find it true that the icy heart of winter can provide clarity and lay bare what is true in your life, September, the month of harvest, of la rentrée and return to rhythms and routines, of things dying and taking new forms, of trees turning and signaling change as they so reliably do, is admittedly a far better time to resolve. So here's to change, as I bring less with me materially, but forever remember State Street, and every moment of love and debauchery, grief and joy, of eggs à la coque, Boxing Day parties and elaborate dinners for two, of planning a wedding at the dining table and sleeping in after it's all over and done. Cin cin!