post blizzard

It was beautiful.
Interesting that it was the record amount of snow dumped upon this mad metropolis; I'm sure a qualifier is in order: "...in a 24 hour period", or "... all in one fell swoop". But a fair swoop it was! Unless, I suppose, you were needing to drive somewhere, or had an aversion to snow.

It began so slowly- barely visible bits of snow on a wind in the afternoon, and such a gradual crescendo until finally by around midnight it had really begun to stick-- even on the streets-- and then came the near white-out visibility and some very slow going in a cab over the Brooklyn Bridge, as the Manhattan Bridge was already held up by accidents. (For example.)

But Sunday was just beautiful. The wind had largely ceased by early afternoon and the city was blanketed, bright, and almost as quiet as it ever gets. (Almost no vehicles, and few walkers, but in such a city as this one can still simply walk down the street or around a corner and enjoy a leisurely and civilized brunch in the midst of a record snowfall-- brilliant!) The sound absorption quality of so many cars-turned-marshmallows, bare trees draped luxuriously in endless white boas, sidewalks disguised as winding cross-country paths-- and all things become utterly softened and deformed of silhouette. The peaked and turreted brick house across the way from my windows took on a decidedly Moomin-esque appeal; great swooping drifts of snow having obscured the true shape of the architecture, rendering it whimsical and unrealistic in aspect.

And now, second day of sun without further precipitation, elegant and amorphous shapes have all but disappeared, leaving only shoveled and plowed mounds between structures, walkways and motorways. Much of the accumulation has gone slushy and brown with agitation and melting.

In hopes of finding some of the remaining shapes, I must take the camera into the Park this afternoon.