Some months get pop songs written about them and others do not. April gets songs. September gets songs — lots of them. October, poor thing, does not. The Fantastiks didn’t sing about August, and you don’t hear chart toppers like The 21st Night of March or Wake Me Up When February Comes, do you?
September has a special poignancy, reflected in many a bittersweet melody, for obvious reasons. The wheel of the calendar is rolling again toward school and work; carefree days of pool-swimming and firefly-catching are waning; vacation is over. The last bloom of the David Austin yellow roses, withered out there on the pergola and turning to rosehips, is only a memory.
As September approaches, we should be heaving a wistful sigh and shopping for pencil sharpeners and argyle socks, but . . . this isn’t what happens to most of us out here, is it? Things are different when you live in a beachside resort town.
Instead of feeling a glum tug back to the daily grind — dreading the constriction of office-appropriate attire after weeks of stretchy Lycra swimsuits and flip flops — we get a sneaky little spring in our step. We are overcome with a curious but unmistakable fillip of extra buoyancy.
It’s because we’re set free!
For those who remain on the South Fork past August 31, Labor Day weekend has become an unofficial time-marker of liberty — a release from crowds, traffic, and the general crush of too many rosé-sippers in too small a space. Glory, hallelujah, it’s Tumbleweed Tuesday! We chirrup to our neighbors over the hedge about the miraculous lack of jams on the Sag Harbor Turnpike. We remark to the Citarella checkout staff about the lifting of humidity, and how September is our favorite month, and we positively can’t wait to slip into a sweater.
This issue we are celebrating that feeling of being unbound. We have leaping modern-dance students (Wild Girls of Lily Pond, Page 25), flying trapezes (Greatest of Ease, Page 12), and vaulting horses (Show & Tell, Page 90). That first shiver of autumn is in the air? We’re jumping for joy.
— Bess & Chrissy
Bess Rattray & Christine Sampson, Editors-in-Chief
P.S.: We’d love to hear about your favorite holiday recipes, for our next issue, the Holiday Issue, in November. Send comments to us at P.O. Box 5002, East Hampton.