A small room inside a bay window. A single bed, a table and chair, and a sink. I could manage something larger, with more conveniences, but I could never match the view.

September often brings with it hot days, but almost always cool mornings and even cooler nights. Not last night. When I turned in at midnight it was 16 degrees centigrade.

James Salter, whom I had the pleasure of reading with in Paris in the early '00s, begins his deliciously-written yet at times disturbingly male-gazing A Sport and a Pastime (1967) with this paragraph:

September. It seems those luminous days will never end. The city [Paris], which is almost empty in August, now is filling up again. The restaurants are all reopening, the shops. People are coming back from the country, the sea, from trips on roads all jammed with cars. The station is very crowded. There are children, dogs, families with old pieces of luggage bound by straps. I make my way among them. It's like being in a tunnel. Finally I emerge onto the brilliance of the quai, beneath a roof of glass panels which seem to magnify the light.