New York City, December 5, 2016

★★★ Clinging blue tendrils of the rainy night held back the arriving day. An older brother in a checked huntsman’s cap and a younger brother in a soft hat with antlers chipped away at each other waiting at the elevators. The five-year-old steered around every puddle but the last one on the way to kindergarten. The light gray clouds and the lighter gray ones were hard to tell apart but were moving fast against one another. By late morning, bright spots had inserted themselves into the blurry motion, and then a clear afternoon came on. Young people sat on the travertine steps, wrapped in the travertine-tinted light, regardless of the chill. Loudspeakers sent “First We Take Manhattan” thrumming over the stone of the bare plaza.