“It’s probably not even running by now,” I said as we walked, sandals slapping brick, and turned the corner. “Oh, looks like I was wrong.” Water was gushing from the spout of the Haymarket Tower, filling the basin below, spilling over its cement sides. We sat, Brooke and I, across from the Tower on a dirty metal bench, sipping our coffee and munching our bagels, just looking at it.

Lincoln is a part of me. I was raised here. I was young here. I suppose I still am. Even when things changed, families got uprooted, and I moved to another town, Lincoln was still my city. My “small town” friends didn’t know about Lincoln’s farmer’s market, or the Green Gateau, or about Bright Lights camp, or about anything really. We sat next to each other, doing the same thing, seeing the same thing. But we were so different. As one of my best small town friends and I watched the water splish and splash from the same bench, our minds were miles apart.

How does it happen? How do we become older, mature, ourselves? How do we grow?

Autumn is my favorite season and today was a perfect autumn day; the hot sun shining and brisk wind blowing, couples strolling hand-in-hand and eating their lunches in the restaurant’s outdoor seating. As I kneel to take pictures of the stream spraying and spouting from the tower, the sun and the mist and the wind flood my face at once and I am struck. I become the 6-year-old girl with a bowl-cut and half an egg roll in her mouth, begging her mommy to let her play in the fountain. It happens only in an instant—or perhaps not at all—and then I am me once again. No bowl-cut, no egg roll; just acid-wash skinnies, streaked waves, a chai latte, and a camera.

How does it happen? How does it work?

We stand and throw our trash away. A girl, a pretty girl, is sitting amongst a patch of yellow flowers, getting her senior pictures taken. We walk to the car, sandals slapping brick, wondering just when the hell it was that we grew up.