Sunday, saree-bedecked and in full party mode, I made my way to the West Village by ferry—at Joe's suggestion, when I complained that walking the mile-plus to the train in heels seemed excessive. Just a few steps away, the pleasantly empty and festive yellow water taxi docked for less than a minute before shoving off to head across the Hudson. Despite sitting by an open window, I managed to emerge without so much as a hair out of place—that is, until I sat in a taxi with all the windows open. Arriving by water seemed the most appropriate entrance, and indeed the ride, much like the Roosevelt Island tram, was a mood- adjuster. Better yet was the romantic walk from Exchange Place in the midnight hour, when I had to put on my shawl against a light wind, and walk as leisurely as possible in my awkward heels. For years, I've enjoyed many of these solitary late-night returns to my busy Queens neighborhood, from one glittering soiree or another, draped in silk, incongruous with the dirt and trash of the street. A stroll along the Hudson and the gem-studded piping of downtown Manhattan is something I never could have imagined in any previous life.

For all the talk in the City about waterfront revival and parks, the spaces at the fringe remain just that, especially at night; there are few characters about, and still fewer who care to be there. I wouldn't wish to change that. The peace one finds near the water is unparalleled in this world of chaos.

As for my inner tumult, it was quelled by a rough-and-tumble swim from Brighton Beach on Saturday, flying with and then chugging into a whipping eighteen-knot wind en route to and from the Coney Island pier. By Sunday, when I embarked on a lonely but easy 5k loop, my state of mind was flat, calm, slack-tide.

Next in the triumvirate of my summer life—boat, swim, violin—comes practicing. I would have a more detailed inner life, perhaps, if I didn't have so many external applications.

14 June 19:35

Lightly rainy evening interspersed with bursts of a waning, golden sun; my guests have cancelled. A boat in the rain is not appealing when it is not your own home. From my end, the rain provides an opportunity to do nothing, to read a magazine from end to end, to eat a microwaved purple yam and watch rivulets run down the windows. I'd had ambitious contingency plans for cooking dinner, betting against my guests, but the pots in my van, a block away, and D.'s trawler's stove, on the next dock, seem almost as far away as the groceries I would like to buy from Grove Street. Perhaps I'm using the boat as an excuse to be lazy.

Yet another rumbling ferry swoops in from Wall Street, suited commuters standing in silhouette with their briefcases.