New York City, December 7, 2016

★★★ The ringer in the alarm app had been turned low and there was nothing in the dark morning, after the sloshing rainy night, for the mind to grab onto on the way up to rousing itself. The rain had given out but the gray stayed. A wet earth smell hung over the forecourt. By midafternoon the cloud cover overhead was letting blue through, but the gloom below lingered, undiminished, a while longer. Then the clouds took on shapes and west-facing glass brightened, and in minutes the proportions of blue and gray had reversed themselves.