New York City, September 16, 2015

★★★★★ The river lay smooth beyond where 61st Street dropped away to the west. There was no need to put jackets on the children; the air in the shade was humid but still a little cool. The steel and glass reflections at the corner of Alice Tully Hall were so strong that for a moment they formed a cage, making it impossible to judge where to go. The side plaza at Lincoln Center smelled of swimming pool: a note of chlorine, a note of cocoa butter. Jet planes crossed the sky at right angles, leaving no trails. Pigeons, near immobile and loaflike, occupied the green of the chained-off grass roof. Shadows filled the plaza till there was only a little patch of sun at the top of the stairs and new reflected sun off tower windows. A toddler in cuffed jeans padded in white-on-black Adidas toward the corner of the dark pool. All was calm and comfort. Only waning batteries and waxing obligations offered any reason to move on.