July’s blazing insistence upon summer has passed. Yesterday everyone flipped the calendar to see the beginning of the school year crouched in wait at the end of the month, September poised at the bottom of the page like some yellow-eyed zombie, only instead of waiting to eat brains, he is sitting down there with a collection of brains waiting to give them back.
The traffic is a little less sparse than it was just last week, but business is slow, lulled. It is hot and less hot outside at the same time, and the humidity no longer sticks to the treetops; it settles between every blade of grass, seeps up into the cars, lurks in every corner of the house and settles on the appliances. Heavy silver sunlight is interrupted by five minutes of rain. The weather. Is moody. The city. Is moody.
I came home from teaching today with Time of the Season stuck in my head. It is one of those songs with which I get obsessed every couple of years -although it occurred to me as I was listening to it for the eighth or ninth time today that obsessed is a somewhat unpleasant word I use to describe myself. Really, what I get is fascinated by stuff. I am fascinated by accordions, real estate, construction and destruction, how people fidget with jewelry, boys with tattoos and glasses, and Centralia, PA. Not obsessed. And when I habitually wrap my hand in my shirt to open doors in public areas, that is not my OCD manifesting itself. It’s my FCD.
Anyway, Time of the Season is a damn sexy song, and just perfect on a day when the city, the weather, everything had a little edge to it. After listening on repeat all the way to Whole Foods, there was nothing I could do but notice the guy with the close trimmed beard, the girl in the miniskirt, the man with dreads, aware of all of their… edges.
Maybe this time of year FCD stands for something else entirely.
