The fleeting changes that often accompany the seasonal transition are especially exasperated in a child's mind, particularly when the cool, crisp winds of autumn signal the approaching end of summer. The lazy routine I had adopted over the course of several months spent frolicking in the cool, chlorine-drenched blue waters of my family's bungalow colony pool gave way to changes far beyond time and textbooks. As the surrounding foliage changed in anticipation of the colder months, so did my family. My mother's stomach grew as she approached the final days of her pregnancy, and in the final hours of my eighth summer my mother gently woke me from the uncomfortable sleep of a long car ride to inform me of a wonderful surprise. We would never return to the four-story staircase I inhabited for most of my young life. Instead of the sidewalk that surrounded my old building, the final turn of our seemingly endless journey revealed the expansive grassy expanse of a baseball field directly across from an unfamiliar, sloping driveway in front of red brick walls that eventually became known as house. childhood was a playground for the imagination. I spent joyful nights surrounded by family in my home in Brooklyn, New York. The constantly shaded red bricks of my family's detached house, located on West Street in Gravesend, a stone's throw from the beach and a short walk from the hustle and bustle of Brooklyn's various commercial areas. In winter all the houses looked alike, stiff and militant, like red-faced old generals with icicles hanging from their moustaches. House after house lined the streets in strictly parallel formation, block after block, interrupted only by my house, whose fortunate zoning provided for a unique situation... in the center of the map... the presence of my parents on the first floor. upstairs, despite the heat of the sauna making my brain go crazy, I suddenly felt homesick and realized I longed to be in my basement. The sinking feeling in my stomach grew stronger when I realized that it's not the basement of my childhood that I miss, it's the basement of my fraternity house where barrels covered the floors like toys and promises were clouded as if the violent were the games of my youth. I found that another cycle had come to an end and I found myself separated from what I had once known. The basement was my sanctuary, the place I could dream. Standing just outside a basement no longer mine, still sweating profusely from the sauna, a crisp late August breeze gently cooled my body. I breathed deeply in the last moments of summer knowing full well that the fleeting changes that often accompany the seasonal transition no longer worried me.