Aurora
Rewrites Itself

September has always felt like a month caught between two impulses. Part of us wants to hold on. The other part knows it is time to move.

Summer has not entirely disappeared. There are still warm afternoons, green lawns and evenings that stretch comfortably beyond dinner. But something has changed. School buses are back on the roads. The mornings feel different. Soon enough, the leaves will begin surrendering their green.

Perhaps that is why, looking across this issue, I kept returning to one question: What do we carry forward?

We didn’t set out to make that the theme of September. Sometimes an issue tells you what it is about only after the stories find one another.

This month, we encounter people carrying memories across generations, a city rewriting itself without abandoning its past, professionals learning what to do with experiences that follow them home, and families preserving pieces of summer for the months ahead.

There is humor here, too, because perspective matters. What feels catastrophic in one moment may look very different once we know the whole story.

And then there is movement. September reminds us that the year isn’t over simply because summer is ending. There is still time to begin something, finish something, change direction, or simply rise after a difficult season.

Perhaps that is what we do with September. We preserve some things. We repair others. We laugh at a few. We let some go. And we carry forward whatever remains worth carrying.

Thank you, as always, for reading and for allowing Fox Valley Review to keep telling the stories of the people and places around us. There is still plenty of year left.