An interesting evening. Significantly colder than the one before, but the absence of precipitation somehow made it a bit more pleasant. For graces received.
Walked through Central Park late in the evening, accompanied briefly by what appeared to be a young female coyote, trotting alongside. To say that it seemed friendly would likely be projecting a few elements of human consciousness to it; better to say that its focused attention, which in other contexts might have had other purposes, was congenial.
Then walked down to the river, which along the length of the island is technically an estuary. I remember several years of cycling the river path, either because I had an apartment in upper Manhattan, or I was on my way to the Shakespeare festival rehearsals or performances. I always noted the direction of flow, and perhaps it's my imagination, but the performances seemed to have a different aspect when the ocean water was flowing upriver (which it does quite strongly at times), as opposed to the usual course of the Hudson. I walked out onto one of the piers, enjoying the absolute stillness and silence, but then I heard a whispering sound, and realized that the ice in the almost-frozen parts of the river were slowly drifting upstream, with the incoming tide.
Then, walked back down through the UWS. I was trying to remember a Swedish hymn certain hymn sung in Swedish; I had roughly the changes in the first few bars, and I kept going over them in my head, with the melody slowly returning more and more in the finer points underneath the broad changes. Then, suddenly, I had the whole tune in my head. I looked to the side, and realized that I was walking past a building in which I used to live, an old, legendary, landmarked building. "More things in heaven and earth," I suppose.