We started the morning with a minor unwinding and recovered with mini pancake puffs and Pingu. The day above likewise was moody skies that resolved to a dew. Marcelo grows mercurially, ebbs and flows like a riptide, an undertow. He exhibits a tribal generosity, is expansive in familiarity but wends opaque when the bonds diffuse.

Evening we climbed Morningside steps to the stern gravitas of Carl Schurz and made our way to the Elysian Fields Cafe, which was unexpectedly closed for a private event so we detoured to Max Soha, on the way to which we witnessed campus safety topple a cyclist, a young black student, arm scraped just below the elbow. C. gave him a bandaid and a quick rinse with Marcelo’s water, for which he expressed sincere gratitude. A quick glance showed he was riding what seemed to me like the same Kilo TT I now use to cart Marcelo to daycare. The whole of it seemed improbable, one of the few black Columbia students struck by a not-so-safe campus safety as we left the not-so-elysian restaurant. Something about the unplaceable tone of today rises to the level of memory, and so am I here.