New York City, March 3, 2013

★★★ Neither the sunshine nor the cold was in any hurry to assert itself. The light faded in from behind thin clouds, and the air was calm. The big parka had not come up from the storage cage all winter, and now it seemed likely it never would. By late morning, objects had gone from not casting shadows to casting clear but faint ones. The streets were quiet and nearly empty, and the thin illumination from the glaring southern sky drew out odd eggplant tones in the dark-gray bricks on the back side of Trumpville. Things kept brightening and shadows kept darkening. By late afternoon, the sun was bouncing around again, poking through windows to discover a chair or a white duvet, as if it had been there all along.