New York City, November 7, 2013

★★★ The jacket, shed and draped on the stroller in the gray warmth of Amsterdam Avenue, now threatened to blow off into a puddle on Riverside Boulevard. The weight of the two-year-old, rather than stabilizing the bucking stroller, was up on adult shoulders, where more bucking was going on, accompanied by whooping. Ever the river wind was not cold, exactly, but there was certainly a lot of it. It trailed along on the way back from the river, helping linden leaves infiltrate the basement hallway of the apartment. A little after 10, a few drops began to fall, and almost instantly there was full rain, invisible but thorough. Downtown, the showers had not rolled in yet. The maple leaves accumulating on the sidewalk outside the churchyard were bright despite the dimness. Then the raindrops came too, bigger ones than uptown. By afternoon, everything was wet and cold, but only as a transitional state, aimed toward a different target: a dry and cold night, under a hard bright moon.