New York City, June 7, 2015

★★★★★ With the sunlight around the edges of the blinds, it was impossible and unnecessary to tell 6 a.m. from 9 a.m. Fresh air blew in. The revolving doorway out to get lunch revealed a baby, in crisp but rumpled white sun hat, coming in the door beside, its share of morning well invested. How many months would it be before another day like this could come by? The planting beds down on the forecourt were swelling with annuals. A small cabbage white, with its globe-spanning eye for a good thing, had found them. It fluttered up and down and alighted. A brilliant shine touched everything. There wasn’t really time to walk up Amsterdam all the way to the lobster-roll place and back, with the schedule so tight, but how could one not venture it? The sidewalk brunchers were so thick it felt like Columbus. The S on a child’s full-length Superman cape glittered. Cops ambled by in their short-sleeved blues, caps in hands. On the way uptown again, to the pool, the boys and the upstairs neighbor boy went sprinting ahead. The seven-year-old and the neighbor debated how cloudless a sky could be. The pool was uncrowded; other people had evidently had other, more outdoor ideas. By the tail end of the afternoon, cool shadows had chased the warmth from the streets. Late light through a glass of seltzer cast a blue stripe on the broccolini and a strip of full rainbow on the wall. The night breeze shook the blinds so loudly it had to be shut out, with regret.