Currently, 09.25.26

Every year in mid-August, I start checking the official Starbucks website daily, awaiting the announcement of PSL season.

I don’t like pumpkin spice lattes. I don’t like pumpkin spice anything.  But I like what the arrival of pumpkin spice represents.

You’ve made it. You survived the humid horror of summer and made it to fall.

I’m a cliché and I’m okay with that. The woman who romanticizes all thing autumn and used the phrase “sweater weather” before it became an SNL skit. I absolutely relish putting my summer whites and warm-weather linen away, and do so well before the weather warrants it.

There are those people walk through Target and gripe, “Halloween decorations already?! Isn’t it a little early?”

And then there are us others. We want to see spooky shit in August.

All of this is to say that I have never been a sunshine and warm weather person, and the second summer’s in the rear-view, I allow myself to whisper the truth of my heart: You’re hot garbage, summer. I’m glad you’re over.

But while in the throes of summer? I’m proud to say I’ve shown mild improvement in recent years of not constantly “wishing it away.” A function, I suspect, of entering middle-age.

In our twenties, it feels like we have all the days in the world ahead of us. Longing for days with cooler weather and pumpkins on the front porch seems harmless.

But at 43, I know that constantly wishing for tomorrow, next week, next season, is no way to live. None of it’s guaranteed.

We only have right now, even if right now is hot and humid.

Which it was.

Not June so much. June here in the city is a stunner. There is the occasional swampy day, but mostly it’s crisp and bright, and just right for Anth and I to begin taking twice daily walks down to the Intrepid and back.

We often end the morning loop with a stop into Broad Nosh Bagels on 9th Avenue, walking out with a still-warm from the oven Everything Bagel and a little tub of Kalamata olive & spinach cream cheese.

June also brought came with repeated jabs of random, lowkey anxiety for me this year, and these calming walks never failed to cure a flare-up.

Or maybe not so random, perhaps just good old-fashioned stress and dread. Because June also necessitated progress on a manuscript we called Fridge Rules, a story turned out to be … elusive.

Every now and then, a book idea is really great in premise, but just doesn’t work on paper. It’s like you can see everything so clearly in your head, sparkly and fresh, but when your fingers settle over the keyboards, only dry sludge emerges.

This was one such story. We repeatedly stalled out at the 30k mark, realized it wasn’t working, and began again. And again. And again.

I don’t believe it’s possible to fail at writing, but in the throes of this manuscript, I most definitely felt like I was failing at writing.

Eventually, we had to call time of death on a story that just wasn’t ready to be written.

Laying Fridge Rules to rest was both relief and agony. It was nice to be done with the resuscitation attempts, but there was still a contract to fulfill, with a deadline to meet, so that rent could be paid.

Which brings us to July. July is not exactly the jewel in Manhattan’s crown. Daily walks quickly became a mere memory, because when there wasn’t an extreme heat warning, there was a severe thunderstorm warning. And when there were neither of those, the sun blazed an angry red against a thick, smoky sky, Air Quality Alerts commanding stay inside until the Canadian wildfires settled.

All the better, perhaps, to hunker down in the AC and write a brand-new manuscript. One that kindly seemed to want to write itself, leaving ample time for devouring Dracula in a single day, and a stormy, 100+ degree Fourth of July indoors with homemade fried chicken and a patriotic puzzle. Spent Thursday-Sunday most weekends watching golf.

Then,

August.

Was savage. The kind of savage that results from unintentionally handing over over your sense of self-worth and source of happiness to someone else.

One of those months that lands emotional blows that knock you off your feet. And you just have stay down for a bit, so that you can first register first what hit you and then why you let it.

But of course, one does eventually get back up. Shake it off. Remember you don’t get to choose everything that happens, but you always get to decide what you do next.

And so, September found me, rescuing me with its cooler weather, the PSLs I will not drink, and the promise of a fresh start. Hey, you made it.

As for summer? I think it’s hot garbage. I’m glad it’s over.

I hope I’m lucky enough to do it all over again next year.