September returns
September is here. For me, a very beloved month because it announces the end of summer, the most dreadful season of the year. Although autumn does not begin until the 21st, depending on the year, the day or the light is already different. It is as if it took a step back, a small step, indeed, but full of meaning. The light begins to tilt and the air, despite the current heat, takes on a kind of unprotected note and announces rains and yellow leaves and muddy paths and decay on the ground. This in the forest, of course. The scent of autumn begins to weave itself from the very beginning. For me, it is a sweet and anise-like scent of fennel. Sometimes, there are years when September has a bunch of calm days, of suspended stillness, of active happiness. The sea has a tired blue, the sky is transparent and only some small cloud wanders through it, white, protective. This is when there is no storm, when the streams do not come down wildly, when the tumult of the water does not carry everything away to the sea.
I like September, for the fennel, for the grapes, for the figs, for the melons. I know that at the end of August the margins are already perfumed with fennel, the figs begin to ripen and the melons offer us their tasty flesh. But these are things of September, this month that was formerly the seventh of the year and from there comes its name.
On September 1, 1939, Hitler occupied Poland and the Second World War began. The English poet Auden wrote an important poem about this date. It is that poem that says that men are made of Eros and dust. And women too. In that era, the masculine plural, and the singular too, encompassed both genders. It is that poem that asks what happened in Linz that could turn Hitler's brain upside down (Hitler was born in Linz, a beautiful Austrian city, very close to where Bruckner, the famous composer, was born). September is a month of beginnings. There is the custom that the school year begins in many countries of the northern hemisphere…
September returns, with the day of the Virgin’s Nativity, which is celebrated on the 8th. In the cathedral of Girona, in the cloister, that wonderful, Romanesque cloister of unforgettable sculptures, there is the Mare de Déu del Bell-ull. A mass is celebrated there every year. Before it was at eight in the morning and now it is at eight in the evening, but it is the same. The floor of the cloister appears covered with scattered fragrant herbs, basil and lavender, above all. Before, the mass was said at the altar that is at the foot of the virgin. Now it is said in the middle of the cloister, using the carved well that is there as an altar. It is a festival attended by many devout people from Girona. Also, in September, we celebrate the National Day of Catalonia. The 11th. It is a commemorative and protest holiday. It commemorates the fall of Barcelona to the Bourbon king in 1714 and, above all, demands the independence of Catalonia. It has been demanded for many years, but it has not yet been achieved. And it is very possible that it will never be achieved, because Spain does not want it and Europe does not want it either. Only we Catalans want it. Some Catalans, to be clear. Those of us who want it are branded as separatists and traitors. And some, like me, have lost friends because of all these demands. What can we do! Every year, demonstrations are organized. Some years they were massive. Now they are more modest, because people get tired. People are tired, it is true. But independence is a desire that will never die. September returns and revives this desire in us.
On the 21st, more or less, depending on the year, autumn begins, this prodigious season, which we will see how it will be this year, with all these things about climate change. I like the smell of autumn. Smell of humidity, mushrooms, moss, fir, already towards Christmas, smell of dry leaves and rotten leaves. September returns and awakens an infinite Christmas nostalgia in my heart. I know I am getting too far ahead of myself in time, but I cannot help it. Christmas, with all its liturgy, is slowly invading my brain. The red berries of the holly, with their red stubbornness, brighten my eyes, and the smell of the jonquils, if I close my eyes, enters my memory and awakens it with all kinds of shivers. I am already dreaming of the small and humble nativity scene that we make every year, with the cork mountains, the moss, the fir twigs that act as trees and the path of coarse salt that leads to the portal. Well, I don't want to rush. Maybe I won't get there.
September returns. It is here already. For the moment I am having my fill of figs, sweet, fragrant, especially the 'coll de dama' variety. A taste of happiness.