New York City, December 15, 2014

★★★★ Morning sun entered the apartment from the west, off a high window across the way. A spider, glowing amber, marched up the sunny wall. Passersby on Broadway had blinding auras; light sparkled in the now-bare twigs in the crowns of the oaks looming beside Prince Street. Shadows rounded each pebble in the coarser sidewalk pavement, and traced the swirling grain of the finer concrete. While it all lasted — till the sun went down in a wash of orange and magenta — it was as lovely and painless as December could plausibly hope to be.