I’ve always felt that September smacks of unfulfilled promise. There’s a paradoxical mix in this month: the excitement of a child sharpening their pencils and the weariness of an adult who already knows the to-do list will win out. We dream of a clean slate but find ourselves back with the crumbs left over from before the summer. The body hasn’t quite left the sea yet; it’s still dragging its heels in a sun-drenched languor, but the diary is already screaming in capital letters. Let’s put it plainly: September is the Monday morning of the year. 

September, aside from the poetry of autumn, is the month of demands. Be well-rested, organised, creative, high-performing, inspiring, in good spirits and, if possible, still tanned. And yet. If you look closely, September could be a marvellous month in what it also allows, provided you rewrite the script. So here’s a completely subjective, vaguely poetic and perhaps slightly useful survival guide.



1. Don’t confuse the start of the new term with a chance for revenge

It’s the same every time the new term starts. We want everything to get off to a flying start. To take back control of a life we’ve barely managed to put on hold because, silently, we tell ourselves: this year, I’m going to make it. 


I’ve learnt over time and through experience that the start of a new year is never a rematch against the previous one. ‘Back to school’ sounds like ‘coming back’, and coming back doesn’t necessarily mean conquering. It’s a continuation of what’s been built; hence the importance of appreciating every moment of it. As Annie Dillard writes in The Writing Life, “the way we spend our days is, of course, the way we spend our lives.” It is in the everyday gestures, even the most trivial ones, that the profound architecture of a life is written. 


We don’t live our whole lives in September – perhaps just a single page at most. Let’s hold on to a little bit of summer within ourselves, a touch of salt in our hair. Let’s carry on with dinners on the terrace even as the light fades, and linger over slow reads at home or on the underground. September, despite the children’s shoes that are too tight, the unread messages that make our stomachs knot, and the sandwich we wolf down between video calls, is above all a month of transition. We don’t step into it as if entering a boxing ring. We adjust our timetable to suit our own rhythm of life. We carve out a screen-free slot. We slip into it, and that requires a little kindness towards ourselves. Let’s reinvent Monday mornings without succumbing to the tyranny of ‘full throttle, straight away’. Gentleness is another name for the art of endurance.



2. Read one woman’s work a week

Whether it’s a page or even just a paragraph, reading women’s writing is like treating yourself to a mirror that doesn’t distort. It’s sitting alongside a voice that doesn’t explain the world from on high, but holds it up at an angle, from behind the scenes, from the hidden corners and the silent pains. Reading women’s writing means remembering that you’re not alone in feeling what you feel, nor mad for thinking what you think. Reading women’s writing means reconnecting with a lineage of ideas and struggles that has often been hidden from us.

Clarissa Pinkola Estés whispers to women weary of having to prove to themselves that they still possess intuition, instinct and hands brimming with wild life. Audre Lorde teaches that to remain silent is to dissolve, and that anger can become light. Annie Leclerc writes about motherhood as a political trial of tenderness. Mona Chollet dismantles patriarchy whilst Rachel Cusk brings to light the ways in which everyday life is rendered invisible. Fatima Mernissi dares to embrace freedom where it is deemed impossible, and Hélène Cixous transforms women’s bodies into a territory of language. Soraya Chemaly, for her part, writes of the right to stop apologising.

And sometimes what we read are neither novels nor essays. They are letters, diaries, fragments, poems. The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf, the Letters to D. by André Gorz, but also those by Nawal El Saadawi, Ananda Devi and Linda Lê. Flashes of lucidity amidst the din. We must read women’s writing because their words strengthen our very being. They act as a solid weave within the frayed fabric of our days. To read a woman’s work every week is to take care of one’s own.


3. Dare to be honest at work

There’s a lot of talk about vulnerability and ‘authentic leadership’ in LinkedIn circles and the like. But in reality, especially for a woman in paid employment, saying ‘I’m tired’ or ‘I need some time’ can come at a high cost. In a world of work still largely structured around constant performance, honesty remains a rare luxury reserved for those who have already given too much (of everything). 

At the same time, saying nothing takes its toll. By gritting our teeth all the time, we forget how to respect ourselves. So what can we do? Not say everything (and not to everyone), but reconnect with ourselves by reassessing what we accept and what we can actually cope with. 

Sometimes it starts by writing down your own limits in black and white and rereading them regularly. It means, for example, being able to say in a meeting: “I’m happy to take on this project, but not at that pace. I’d suggest a more realistic schedule.” And when the system doesn’t even allow that – when it punishes the slightest comment as a sign of disengagement – then it isn’t you who is fragile. It’s the system that’s broken. Bell hooks reminded us that “work isn’t supposed to break us.” If speaking up puts you at risk, then that place isn’t meant to last.


4. Listen to your body

The body always knows before we do when things are off-pace. A stiff neck, getting out of breath more quickly on the stairs, a few minor memory lapses. The body speaks through migraines, sleepless nights and palpitations. And we refuse to listen. 

September is a good time to bring the body to the decision-making table: the body is a compass before it is fuel for the machine. Aristotle wrote that thought is inseparable from sensation. If we ignore the body, it reminds us of itself with greater force.

The philosopher Cynthia Fleury speaks of health as our “primary existential capital”. It all starts there: without it, nothing has any value. We may lose a job, a home, a sense of certainty — but if we lose our health, everything else comes crashing down.

In Sisters of the Yam, bell hooks (yes, her again) argues that self-care is a political act in a world that prefers us to be exhausted. According to hooks, looking after oneself, one’s health and one’s joy means rejecting the patriarchal and capitalist logic that wears women down to the point of exhaustion. It is about refusing to let oneself be broken. In an environment where speed reigns supreme, where the demand to be ‘resilient’ all too often takes the place of social justice, listening to one’s body is an act of radical resistance.

We do not have a spare body. We have only this one, marked and sometimes weary, yet always marvellous. To give it back its voice is to reclaim a power long lost.


5. Don’t run away from disillusionment; face it head-on

Sometimes September doesn’t begin with the joy of renewal but with a sense of uncertainty, a weariness. A kind of disenchantment, whilst all around us things are brimming with vigour. We’d like that energy to burst forth as it does on New Year’s Day, but it doesn’t come. This disconnect is a sign.

The lack of momentum, the weariness upon waking, the irritation at the thought of getting back to it as if nothing had changed – all of this deserves to be heard. Perhaps one desire is beginning to crack, making way for another. Albert Camus wrote that ‘autumn is a second spring in which every leaf is a flower.’ We must learn to interpret the fall in a different light. What falls does not always die; it makes way for something else. What unravels sometimes frees us from a pact that has become obsolete. The philosopher Pascale Seys speaks of disenchantment as a process of maturation that is not always pleasant but is natural. According to her, we do not grow up without losing certain illusions. I believe this too. 

The danger lies in wanting to run away, in turning a blind eye. In hastily patching up the cracks. In trying to patch up a timetable, a career, a married life or a parenting routine that no longer suits us. Sometimes we must accept the void. And ask ourselves this immense question: Is this still where I feel alive? The poet Rupi Kaur writes:“If you were born with the fragility to fall, you were also born with the strength to get back up.” We must learn to dance with disillusionment in order to begin the necessary rewrites. Lucidity is never the end of the dream, only the end of the illusion. And sometimes, it is only from that point that we can truly begin to create something sincere and lasting.


6. Laugh (for real)

Find someone — a friend, a sister, a partner, a child — who makes you laugh until you cry. Laugh for no reason, especially not out of politeness, until you have to wipe your eyes with your sleeve. Treat yourself to that luxury. It’s worth more than all the balance sheets, all the projects tied up on schedule. In The Art of Joy, Goliarda Sapienza writes this unforgettable line: ‘I want it all: life, love, lucidity, pleasure and struggle. Laughter is all of these things at once. It is an escape into tenderness… and proof that, despite the world’s absurdities, we are still breathing. Laughter is remembering that we are alive even in the face of adversity. 


Laughter provides a breath of fresh air. It’s about rediscovering that part of our childhood that hasn’t disappeared, despite our responsibilities, mental burdens and shared diaries. It’s an act of personal dignity and public health. Sometimes, we’ve learnt so much about being serious, being professional, being credible, that we forget our laughter, too, carries authority and can set us free. So in September, if we were to plan just one thing outside our schedules, let it be this. An evening with no agenda, a conversation that goes off on a tangent, a silly comedy that does us good. Laughter is a victory. It is even, at times, a strategy for joy in the face of everything that seeks to weigh us down.


September expects us to be perfect, burdened with unrealistic expectations. Let’s break free from that pressure. It’s about picking up where we are, with what we have, and with who we’ve become over the summer and in previous years. In reality, September offers us the chance to remember that we are not alone. Other women before us have navigated these moments of friction between their aspirations and reality. They have turned them into works of art, poems and powerful phrases. And within this lineage of meaning and struggles, we have our place. 


I hope you’ll dance and twirl your way through sunshine and storms this September.



Inès Leonarduzzi

Inès Leonarduzzi is a socio-environmentalist. A few years ago, she founded an NGO that advocates for and promotes digital technology that consumes less energy and is kinder to our brains. She is the author of the essay *Réparer le futur* (Published by Observatoire, 2021) and gives talks in France and abroad on a variety of topics, ranging from the environment to culture, including our new ways of living (together). She occasionally writes poetry. Every month throughout 2025, she invites readers to come together on Aroma-Zone.com to explore the theme of joy, so that we may collectively discover the possibilities for a daily life which, despite its ups and downs, is worth living.