September in New York.

Another summer swallowed.

We’ll never know where they all go. Before you can finish saying, “I can’t believe it’s June!”, August has already ducked away, dissolved into a memory. It will always be this way.

I never did love summer as a child. It was always a reminder of how deeply I longed to live in a place where I would at least have fall to look forward to at the end of it all.

But then I grew up and moved to one of those mystical places and fell in love smack dab in the middle of one summer and for the first time in my life, I no longer yearned for all of those lazy, never-ending days of June, July, and August to shorten. For the first time in my life, I wanted to stretch them between my hands like a string of taffy.

And then, of course, fall truly came just as I dreamt of it doing from the sun-scorched city of my youth and summer became a short, survivable thing to be enjoyed lavishly and then promptly celebrated upon its inevitable departure come the onset of another autumn.

Which is where we are now.

Early September. The weather is breezy and in the 70s. Clear, warm sunlight. It feels like California came for a visit. I want to stick a straw into the blue sky and sip it like lemonade.

Summer is undeniably over, yet fall is still gearing up to begin. It’s that strange, liminal space between the two where things are paused and lacking identity. There’s time to think about all kinds of things.

This morning, for example, the first day of school in NYC, I watched the little girl across the street posing in a rush on the stoop with her “kindergarten” sign in hand. “Daddy, it’s finally Thursday!” she shouted. Time to go, and she was ready. I looked into my mug of coffee and thought of how I was just like her. And then it all happens so fast.

She doesn’t know this yet.

You’re walking into kindergarten one day, and texting your dad about how to do your taxes so you don’t somehow accidentally commit tax evasion the next. And in remembering the absolute horrors of kindergarten, I must say I really do prefer the latter.

The end of summer was rooftop parties in Brooklyn where everyone is an actor or working on a screenplay or just moved here from there and they all speak with this air of indifference or maybe aloofness, as if they are partially distracted.

Perhaps by the escalating beer pong championship over yonder, or the sunset stealing the skyline, but most likely simply by the allure of New York itself. By the city lights and the life we all imagine finding for ourselves somewhere within them any day now. Everyone is chasing something, like moths to an eternally lit flame. There’s neither much time nor energy for meaningless chatter. You learn that.

Because why inquire about college degrees and nine-to-fives when you can all stand around marveling at the city you somehow finagled your way into instead?

Someone snaps a surprise Polaroid. Somewhere in the blinding flash, you see your best friend from high school with her Polaroid around her neck. You barely remember her anymore, but you remember that camera’s flash. She’s god knows where now and you’re here and you swear that absolutely nothing in the world is just as it was then, except maybe that flash.

That’s all a memory is anyway. A flicker of light, dissipated before you can brace for it.