New York City, March 17, 2016

★★★ Morning was bright but not sun-flooded, chilly but no colder than that. By late morning, the sky had burned clear. The sun had still not touched the east side of the avenue on the walk back to school for the half-day pickup. The four-year-old had rolled his pants to the knees. A row of bright ovals, projected down through the top edge of the opera house across the street, followed the course of the sidewalk. Clotted mounds of cumulus formed in the west, and then blurry gray overspread everything. Heavy clouds with shimmering marks of strain in them glowered, then relented. The far distant hills to the northwest were a maybe unprecedented pale lilac, with the white spark of some sunlit building floating on them. It had rained some on the sitter on her way over for the later afternoon, but daylight shone down the subway stairs. The breeze felt more like fall than spring. Again horrible clouds covered everything. Umbrellas were out on the sidewalks and tires left wet stripes behind them in the roadway. For a moment the fluorescent fixtures in the newer 72nd Street control house passed for discolored sunbeams. Two trees on Verdi Square were in bloom, and a few daffodils were up. The real sun was blocks down Broadway, on the bright, debased facade of 2 Columbus Circle.