There were days when I stayed out a long time—up to three or four hours. I made a loop. I went from park to park. That’s where the flowers were. Early on, before the playgrounds were closed, I took comfort in watching the young children, or even just hearing their trilling voices as I sat on a bench nearby. (Not reading, as I would have been doing in ordinary times. I had lost the ability to concentrate. It was only the news that gripped my attention, the one thing I wished I could ignore.)
