New York City, September 11, 2016

★★★★ Rigging ropes swayed outside; contrails feathered into intersecting clouds. The old day’s heat had been so stuffy it seemed to call for air conditioning, but the breezes coming in were cool and clean enough to induce panic about the limited hours in the day, the limited unknown number of days beyond it, while the four-year-old demanded to play indoors with Legos and the nine-year-old stalled his way through practicing the viola. Outside it was warm enough to raise a sweat in the crook of the elbow that held the phone full of people arguing about how warm the day was. A woman argued with her child about whether it was too hot for him to set up his car-crashing game in the unshaded part of the playground. The sunset was pink-streaked and lovely but grimly early.