New York City, March 31, 2015

★★ Overlapping shadows in the crisscrossing light cast a dark spearpoint ahead of the stroller advancing westward. The three-year-old wanted to know why his hat mussed his hair on days like this one. Out on the bright blue Hudson, a green-and-white tugboat pushed a barge behind a slightly lighter green and white Circle Line ship. Two starlings and two pigeons pecked at the smears where leaking garbage bags had been freshly removed. A thin cloud intercepted the sun, the first step on the decline into a dark and dripping afternoon. At rush hour, the rain was coming and going over wet streets in an atmosphere tinged green.