Where the misty, gray damp of day gives way to a slick, cold evening.

Where the color of Rita's blueberry Italian Ice is royal azure until the frozen custard melts and mixes into it at which point it's closer to cerulean.

Where the post-fingerprinting ink-remover-wipe smells like lemon rind and neroli.

Where the sun's appearance does little to appease the disgruntlement caused by the enduring cold.

Where at the farmer's market on 97th Street the apple guy hands a woman a rubber-banded bunch of apple blossom branches and smiles and says, "you just have to shock them a little and they'll bloom right out."

Where in Central Park the purple crocuses are just barely visible underneath the unexpected snow.



Where a woman on the downtown express train sculpts a conch shell out of clay with a small metal hook and flicks the extra bits of clay into her leather purse.

Where at a book party in New York City a woman from the audience tells the author that she reads the author's blog and likes the urban scenes but can do without all the nature stuff.

Where in the therapists' waiting room a woman waiting for her daughter to come out of therapy berates her husband over the phone for his failure to lie convincingly to her friend, and a couple coaches their son through a game of connect four: "there's no 'right answer' honey, it's really just whatever move YOU want to make" and "son, you can listen to me or you can listen to your mom but if you listen to us both, you're always gonna lose."

Where at the Lynchburg, VA train station a passenger asks the ticket taker if there is a special process "for declaring like at the airport" and the ticket man says he didn't know anything about that and asks if the passenger had "'it' on his person" and the man nods and the clerk says, a little louder, I don't know anything about that.

Where during dinner at the artist colony some of the writers are talking about what is supposed to be a brighter than usual, closer than usual, larger than usual "super-moon," but when the poet goes out into the dark Virginia night, she thinks the moon looks a lot like a regular moon.

Where the horse's long snort sounds like the riffling pages of a thick flip book.

Where after a long rain the sun finally beats down in earnest revealing what we knew but did not believe would come: Spring.

Where, after lunch, the horses move to another field, the writers and visual artists go back to their studios, and the work of the day continues.

Where on the Sweet Briar college campus one of the stop signs has a purple sticker on it that reads, "with all the patchouli."

Where the birds and birds' nests are not visible on the huge, budless tree that at 8 am in Lynchburgh, Virginia seems to singing.

Where at 7:08 pm the sky over Proffit, Virginia looks soft and scratchy, grayish-bluish-white, like quilt batting.

Where the way down is not as scary as the way up but almost and requires small, careful steps and a helping hand.

Where the air in the room feels different—softer—after a hot bath.

Where, during intermission at Tom Stoppard's play "Arcadia," one woman says to another, "Makes you want to learn about Science, huh?"

Where on a cold and gusty Ash Wednesday the city is full of signs and symbols: smudged crosses on foreheads at every intersection, a thick black NY Yankees symbol tattooed on a heavyset white man's Adam's apple, a black man in a buttoned up trench coat and Yankees knit hat sleeping at his usual Starbucks post and across from him the two overweight, bespectacled women brainstorming the perfect question to ask "important Jewish artists" settle on "Name your greatest hope and greatest fear."

Where, from 42nd to 72nd street, the strangely empty subway car divulges its usually indistinguishable revving and hissing and clanking as it hurtles by the local stops, shuddering as it passes each underground pylon.

Where Camel Park on Amsterdam and 101 street is empty at 2 pm because all the children in the neighborhood are napping except one small boy whose mother pushes him on the swing—time stretches out—and the swing groans its own call and response: eee--ohhh, eee-ohhh, eee-ohhh.

Where a hard rain rebounds against the avenue making the darkened concrete look prickled with goosebumps.

Where the sky over the Westside Highway is the color of an X-ray slide without a light-box.

Where the lunar mission is all set to go but three men are down.

Where, on the corner of 55th and 6th at 7 pm, an off-duty driver watches a woman and her son wait for 25 minutes in the freezing cold for a taxi, a livery car, anything warm with wheels, and when three young, female tourists sidle by, snuffs out his second cigarette, opens the door for them, and flicks on his light.

Where every man and boy smile wistfully, but the women look suspicious or skeptical and one woman barks, "Jacket!" as young Batman singing NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA... rides by.

Where the city, after a few days of rain, is as clean as it can get.