Late August in Astoria smells different than July.
I can't explain the science but I felt it walking down 30th Avenue yesterday — a coolness sneaking into the evening, the light going gold a little earlier, everyone lingering outside like they know something's ending.
Late August in Astoria is my favorite version of the neighborhood. The Greek bakeries put chairs on the sidewalk. The N train rumbles overhead. Old men play backgammon outside the cafés like they've done every summer since before I was born.
I got an iced coffee I didn't need from the spot near Ditmars and sat on a stoop that wasn't mine. Nobody minded. That's Astoria.
There's a specific ache to late August in New York. Summer here is brutal — the trash smell, the swampy subway platforms, the way your makeup slides off by 10am. You complain the whole time.
And then it starts to leave and suddenly you're mourning it.
Late August in Astoria felt like the last chapter of a book I wasn't ready to finish. Kids squeezing the final drops out of the day. The souvlaki smell drifting from every other doorway. A saxophone player near the Steinway stop, playing something slow.
It reminded me of the end of school holidays back home in Ahmedabad — that same reluctant, bittersweet turning. The countdown you feel in your body before your calendar catches up.
I walked all the way to Astoria Park and watched the light go pink over the bridge. A group nearby was playing old Kishore Kumar off a phone speaker, and I let myself just stand there and feel three cities at once.
Late August in Astoria is the city catching its breath before fall.
I'm not ready. I never am. But I'm learning to sit in the last warm evening instead of rushing it.
Summer, don't go yet.
Love,