September

September is new years

Eve of august’s last swim

Kids splashing in the deflatable pool on the front patio

Chicken bones and paper plates left on the playground tempting my dog’s nose

Everyone get’s their Labor out

Before the labor of fall begins

I’m ready for school supplies and organizing desk drawers

Can you gift me a bouquet of colored pencils

Stole that line from You’ve Got Mail

Trying to embrace my Meg Ryan while hopelessly romantically seeking my Tom Hanks

Summer greets the ambition of September

Shakes hands with novelty and pushes your tooshy onto the sidewalk like a mom on the first day of school

Trees whistle, you got this girl

It wasn’t Tom Hanks but coincidentally I passed a box with the label free school supplies on Madison Street two days ago, Boots guided me in the best direction.

Pencils in a case, colored and gray. Markers and Elmers glue, pens with juice.

Gave half to my neighbor with actual children.

Kept the other half for the part of me that is always a child on their first day of school

Eager and excited, ready to flirt and immerse myself in something greater than myself

Can we steal kisses under crisp leaves in between learning and working

Autumn, the beginning of invested opportunity

The season for falling

Sipping hot cappuccinos in blazers on benches watching the city move mountains

To feel alive in my skin as if the cool breeze was my sidekick

Kick into action

Yesterday was the first day of the new semester teaching Sustainable Systems

Wore bright raspberry pink linen dress with rubber heels, patterned bandana folded and tied at the crown of my head, big glass beads and turquoise connecting ring finger to wrist

Adorned with grandmother’s best, as we talk about cave people leaving legacy

The first human artists

And explore ancient Egyptians harnessing solar energy to boil water

Nothing new we’re doing here

We watched a bird perform a mating dance, utilizing human trash and plastic to build a structure and show off to attract a female, a bittersweet adaptability, and I asked, who is the designer

After class, I sat on a bench nearby and watched the students parade their outfits

Exposing skin hoping someone sees their heart

Trying not to try

How eager, nervous and excited

Today I sat on the other side, in a tiny white desk forming a small circle with young twenty somethings talking star wars characters

Strutting out of the air conditioned fluorescents at 8pm into the warm coming-to-the-end-of-summer night breeze, removing the mask and smirking to no one but the movie that’s always been inside me

Caught a glimpse of a classmate being swopped up by her lover on the sidewalk in a enrapturing embrace, head tilted back proud for all to see

To be a freshman again

This was my first screenwriting class

In the same building where I studied the brain’s response to mindfulness or presented on a Green Fund grant or cried in a directors office with a strong desire to go to Africa and then presented on research fieldwork in Mbale, Uganda 8 months after or grilled the Chartwells dining purveyor like the food activists we were in tie dye overalls or made out in the courtyard or flirted in the back row or fell in love. Over and over again. Or began reading the stories I wrote about love out loud in front of others uttering the word memoir. Or held hands with a uniformed security guard not long before he passed.

Worth every penny of 90,000 debt.

I’m indebted to you, September

Photo: Coloring pencils from sidewalk