It’s official. Summer is over. The traffic was murder over the weekend (or so I heard). People are back in their offices and the shops are all open for business. School starts Wednesday for the big kids, Thursday for the little ones. New notebooks, pencils, backpacks, school shoes, the works. The guys living on the sidewalk outside our place even have a new couch.

For me, the change has been dramatic. After spending most of August in a city where the streets and subways were virtually empty and friends were scattered to the four corners of the earth, some for good, some just for awhile, suddenly my dance card is full again. Meetings at school, social gatherings, new families with loads of questions. My language classes will start again soon. And there’s a crispness in the air that’s an invitation to walk and walk, something that was not so inviting in the dog days of summer. Forget April in Paris, September’s the best.