Tag Archive for snowzilla

Snowzilla, the aftermath

Went out this morning early, in the bright sun. Lots of dogs and photogs: the day was absolutely gorgeous.

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Steps

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Car waits to be dug out

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Wheeling the bike back into the garage (after she flopped into the snow to flatten a path)

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Another bike to come back for

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Be a while before this pile melts

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Down by the river (Carlos Dews, this one’s for you)

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This isn’t usually a pool, it’s a small inlet with a bridge over it about three feet above the water

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Scrollwork on the back of my bench

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Why I couldn’t sit on my bench this morning

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Car, somewhere in there

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Snow on low wall, against high wall

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Grace is everywhere

Snowzilla, Part Two

Went out a second time about an hour ago. Snow’s blowing harder. Walked — okay, trudged — in the other direction, not toward the river but into the neighborhood streets. Went maybe ten blocks away. Out and back took an hour. Here are the afternoon’s photos. Now I’m done, settled in, about to go back to the book I’m working on and then watch the Knicks, who apparently made it to Charlotte last night although the airports were closed by the time they were finished losing to the Clippers.

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Door as I was leaving the building

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Statue in the park

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Green means go but so what, really?

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Wall

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Sidelined sidewalk cafe

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Snowplow oops

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I think we’ll come back tomorrow for the bike

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Rather Gothic gate

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We NYers will take our icicles where we can get them

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Hope the 6th Precinct doesn’t need that car

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Or that one (the 24-hour pharmacy, by the way, is closed)

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Pipe connection

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This is a traffic-ticket vehicle, so you KNOW they don’t need this one

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Scrollwork

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Citibikes going nowhere

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Grate

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Vines on the wall

Snowzilla, Part One, plus a manifesto

These are some of the photos I took this morning in NYC. Yes, I was out. I go to the river every morning before I start work, by which I mean, every morning. The exceptions are morning when I have some early appointment, but the exceptions are not weather. Weather is part of the point.

Because I learned this in a sudden epiphany years ago: gorgeousness and pleasantness are not the same. What happened was, I went with a friend to Storm King Art Center. It was summer, July or August, a very hot day. Storm King’s a vast outdoor sculpture park, conceived and operated to present, well, vast outdoor sculptures. We’d been roaming over the rolling hills for about half an hour, sweating as we ambled from diSuvero to Noguchi, when it started to rain. My friend was all for running into the small house they use to show small works. But this was just a warm rain, no thunder, no lightning, and we’d been so hot and sweaty. And a Henry Moore was glistening white and wet in the distance. My friend went in; I stayed outside, meandering around on the soggy grass, seeing the glistening Moore, watching drops plink into puddles in Noguchi’s carved stones. And I realized: physical discomfort is unavoidable, and everywhere. My back hurts after a couple of hours at my desk. I have to grab for air playing basketball. Nothing, as long as I live in this physical body, is without cost. So why not get wet in a fabulous rain near plinking Noguchis?

This philosophy has served me well. I got to see double rainbows in Mongolia after a cold wet night.

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I tramped through — and fell down in — slippery mud in the terraced rice fields of Yunnan, and I saw this.

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And I went out today in Snowzilla, and found many things.

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Outside from inside, just before I left.

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Holly

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Snowplow tracks

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The river near my bench

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Light and its reflection

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Grating

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Sledding kids (what a good daddy they have)

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Trees and wall

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Benches

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Trees

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I wasn’t at the river alone

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Hard-working building super