New York City, September 11, 2017

★★★★★ Children struggled into extra layers on their way out of the building. The new fluorescent green mesh backpack cast translucent shadows in the little patch of sun at the schoolyard’s edge. The sky was whiter than a perfect blue, and the warmth was not able to reach summeriness, even out in the open over pavement, before the breeze chased it off. A surging tide of pedestrians forced an SUV, hoping to beat a light, to jam on its brakes. Indoors was too cold but the shade out the windows was so deep it seemed that must be the actual character of the afternoon. The first step into the true warmth, at the workday’s end, brought a pang of loss and regret for not having been out in it sooner.