The September Ledger

September arrives like a bill you forgot about. The summer closes mid-gesture, you’re back in school rhythms even when school is years behind you, and somehow your favorite pants are too tight again. Mona’s birthday happened without Mona in it. Someone’s always gone in September.

The city keeps handing you flyers for things you won’t attend. Apple juice spills across something important. The DS sits idle, nothing new to play. All those empty bottles on the windowsill accumulating into something slightly more symbolic than they need to be. The distance between Berlin and the rest of the country feels particularly specific this time of year.

But then. Kidrobot releases something worth wanting. Apple announces new MacBooks and iPods and the tech internet performs its seasonal rapture. You eat genuinely fresh fish somewhere and it tastes like a correct decision. Be The One by The Ting Tings comes on at exactly the right moment—that guitar entry, that build—and September suddenly seems less like a sentence. The Script’s sound is pure late summer in headphone form; there’s a warmth in their production that turns a grey commute into something worth having.

Nora Tschirner in Keinohrhasen finally on DVD. Mischa Barton resurfacing after what felt like a long disappearance. The Cooler Mag in the mail. Mark Chang doing something genuinely beautiful with light and faces on Flickr. Oktoberfest on the horizon, which is either good news or a threat depending on your liver’s current position. That specific feeling of clearing something difficult and landing cleanly on the other side.

September takes things. September also returns some of them, changed just enough that you don’t immediately recognize them as gifts.