As I drove back from some errands yesterday around three, I had a strange sense of something wrong—out of sync. No dogs trotted down the sidewalk alongside their owners. The neighborhood pool was deserted. I reached for my bottle of water—almost empty. The temperature gauge on my dash read 94, and a perky voice on the radio put the heat index in the hundreds. Gee, thanks! A yellow bus lumbered by.

That was it! The bus. School was in session, but where was fall? When would the little children fly down the street in jeans and long-sleeved shirts? When would Mom bring the family dog to the bus stop and wait for her kids while sipping coffee? When would the grass stop growing and the lawn fill with leaves?

Cool, crisp Septembers in Northern Virginia are about as mythical as White Christmases, but still, I hope for them. The alarm on my “teacher clock” goes off in September and I’m ready for the energy of a new year, even though I walked out of the school door three years ago. Activities at church kick into high gear. Everybody and everything has a meeting the same week. Summer salads disappear from my favorite restaurant, and pumpkin spice beverages appear. (So what if I need something cold and icy?) When I reach the air-conditioned comfort of home, I salivate over catalogs that feature purple boiled wool jackets and plaid skirts. Fall, where are you?