Last Sunday, on an early morning walk in the woods behind our home, I was amazed to see how, despite the warm weather, autumn had crept quietly into the countryside. It was a pleasant, cool morning, and a thick fog blanketed the low grounds, amplifying the sounds of the animals as they scampered across the land.

Somehow, in the bustle of getting my son ready for his return to college and my daughter for her final year of high school, I hadn't noticed how the maple tree beside our house showed hints of red and the impatiens, assisted by moist mornings and cool evenings, had become a rainbow of beautiful colors. Even the pasture behind our barn had begun fading to brown.

Autumn, although the cyclical ending of life in the natural world, has always felt like the beginning of something new for me.

I am sure it is because autumn brings with it the return of the school year: Yellow buses again dot the roads. Students are meeting new teachers and classmates. Soccer and football fields teem with activity. And kids, with their parents in tow, flock to their favorite retail store for school supplies and outfits.

For the past two decades — all of my life, really, because first I was a student and then a high school English teacher — the beginning of the school year has naturally created a sense of excitement, a kind of rhythm to my life. With the beginning of school, structure returns to my day, familiar patterns reoccur, and, in my mind's eye, the entire year begins to unfold with comfortable familiarity.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the rhythm of a school year and the annual sense of renewal it brings, especially in light of a phone conversation I had with my sister following my walk in the woods.

Her youngest child graduated from high school last spring, and she has joined the ranks of "empty nesters," a group I will be part of next year when my daughter graduates.

"It's weird," my sister told me. "Your routine is different. No kids' schedules to keep. No more soccer practices. There's still college, but that's different. It's not every day."

Hanging up the phone, I thought of how my daughter's school year continues to shape my life, giving it a routine. Earlier in the week, on her final "first day" of school, I stood outside our front entranceway and took her picture, a practice begun more than two decades ago, and one that won't occur again.

When children are no longer in my home, other changes may occur: Dinner will no longer be planned around student activities. Vacations could occur throughout the year. Spontaneity may return.

But when the routine of school is no longer part of my life, will autumn continue to feel like the beginning of something new? Or will it feel more in keeping with the natural world, a cyclical ending? A time of hibernation? A waiting for spring?

Only time will tell.