Weather Review: Aberdeen, Maryland, to New York City, September 19, 2021

STRONG MORNING LIGHT came in where it could through the canopy of leaves fat with warmth and water. The flood channel had cut a persistent muddy groove, on its way to being a real streambed, down the backyard. It was cool enough to fill the whole back of the rented Kia minivan with disassembled bookshelves, case by case, without breaking a sweat. Highway medians were in golden bloom, with what looked like tall sunchokes in Maryland and goldenrod up in New Jersey. Overpass shade was so deep the minivan’s display flipped over to night mode and back. The splayed wheels of a wide-stance Lexus reached out to catch the sun. The stalks of phragmites were individually traced with shadow in the lowering sun as traffic choked to a dead hopeless stop at the Lincoln Tunnel exit. Ivy climbed four stories up the stairway towers by the tollbooth. Manhattan’s clustered heights were lovely and unreachable in the distance. Finally, the tunnel was over and the van windows could come down to let in fresh city air. Balconies jutted in three sharp sunlit dimensions above streets already blurry with dusk.