New York City, December 10, 2015

★★★★ Birds sang and something loose inside the engine of an idling delivery truck twittered. Again the streets were full of lustrous haze. Wool and down were still upstairs on their hangers. Coatless children in thick sweaters ran ahead of their adults. The decision on the subway was no decision at all: Get off at the Flatiron and walk right down Fifth Avenue. The crosswalk signals were all in tune. Polished letters spelling the name of an upscale store winked individually as the sun caught the little differences in alignment or placement among them. The city, brightened and softened, looked like the memory of a visit to some other city, but it had all been here, every day. It had.