Come September

When I was Very Young my godly mother used to play a song, by The Shadows or The Ventures or something, called Come September. The point being that, in September, when the new school year starts, people who have flunked have a shot at passing again. Of course, since school started in June and if one flunked one stayed flunked and usually moved school if one's parents loved one enough*, it made no sense at all. One also didn't know that school could mean many things, like what a twenty-five year old does in the West Village, and happened in many places.

Well September has come around and I spent the day doing probably what I did last year, only this time it was with the slightly supercilious air of a person who knows where to get free print-outs, and what time to go to the bank to avoid the line, a person who knows the Washington Square campus by heart and isn't shy about sharing her knowledge. It felt very strange.

When I remember myself going about bizniz last year I'm convinced it was in another place, a place that is hazy and tinged with a cold grey light, where there are a few buildings with NYU banners and a few vaguely familiar faces from the Graduate Welcome Week events. It was a New York that was very empty and quiet and very full and noisy, by turns; a New York where I could never run into anyone I knew on the street, and even if I did, odds were I wouldn't know their name.

Yesterday I planned to meet two people, and I ran into four more. The park was full of bright sunshine and the sky was ridiculously blue.



*of COURSE I have never flunked!!!!! ;)