Something happens to my shoulders on September 1.

They drop.

I don’t consciously tell them to. There is no ceremonial turning of the calendar, no first leaf drifting picturesquely past the window. It can still be 87 degrees outside.

But somewhere in my body there is an enormous, unmistakable sigh:

I made it through August.

I’ve only recently started admitting that I think I may have seasonal depression.

In summer.

This produces one of two reactions. Some people look at me as though I have just dropped out of the sky.

But a surprising number gasp:

“ME TOO.”

And suddenly we are comparing notes like members of a secret society no one told us existed.

In fairness, summer and I have had our differences.

I am currently recovering from my third MOHS surgery on my face, thanks in no small part to the enthusiastic relationship I had with the sun in the 1980s. Poison ivy can locate me with military precision. I have become allergic to an impressive assortment of biting insects.

And last summer I discovered that apparently even floating peacefully in the water—one of my great summer escapes—was no longer above suspicion. I emerged from my last dip covered in hives.

Are we beginning to understand why I started a skincare company?

Don’t misunderstand me. There are things about summer I love.

Long evenings. Barbecues. Summer vacations with my family. Being outside until ridiculously late because the sun simply refuses to go home.

But I grew up in the Deep South, and I believe I have fulfilled my lifetime obligation to sweating and humidity.

And please do not get me started on what humidity does to Scottish curly hair. There are battles one simply cannot win.

Then there are the animals.

Summer on a farm is an endless exercise in trying to keep everyone cool and comfortable. Chickens and cats can overheat. The flies plague my sweet horses. They stomp and swish and end up covered in welts despite every anti-fly potion I concoct and every fan I have running.

There is always something I am trying to protect from the heat, the sun, the insects or all three.

Winter is different.

I know how to keep the things I love warm.

Perhaps that is part of it.

The horses grow enormous fuzzy coats. They adore the snow. They run in it and roll in it, and somehow those remarkable coats shed the wet and cold as though winter were precisely what horses were designed for.

My chickens have the cozy little house I made for them, complete with a heater and freeze-proof water.

The barn cats have the hayloft, where they disappear among the bales and create warm little tunnels and nests for themselves.

Cold seems to have answers.

Another blanket. A heater. A bale of hay. Warm water. Close the door. Light the fire.

Heat is harder to negotiate with.

And then there is me.

Give me L.L.Bean boots, fleece and jeans. Give me a fire burning and something warm cooking on the stove. Give me an early evening when everyone—people, dogs, cats, chickens and horses—is accounted for and tucked where they belong.

Give me that first moment when you step outside and realize you need a jacket.

I am home.

There is a particular feeling that arrives for me sometime in September and stays, in one form or another, through April.

It is a warm hug of a feeling.

The world becomes smaller. Softer around the edges. More manageable.

We come inside earlier. We cook differently. We light fires. We gather. We settle in.

And I relish every bit of it.

So perhaps September doesn’t feel like the end of summer to me at all.

It feels like the beginning of my season.

There is something deeply comforting about knowing that the months ahead suit me. That I can stop bracing against the weather and start settling into it.

Maybe that’s why my shoulders drop before the temperature does.

Before the first frost. Before the leaves really begin to turn. Before I have any legitimate reason to pull out the fleece.

My body seems to know.

September is here.

I made it through August.

And my happiest months are ahead.