Snow in New York City

The first month of 2022!

January Snowfall

It snowed this month where I live on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. The bright beautiful snow was a delightful sight to see, but it also took out my wifi, therefore power, for a short amount of time over a weekend. I did feel lucky though that I was not in Massachusetts while this storm was passing through the cities of New York and Boston. To appreciate the snow as much as I could while it lasted, I left the warm comfort of my studio apartment, layered on coats, a scarf, hat and gloves, and trekked up the street to Central Park. 

I was met with a joyful nature-made playground with children sledding and young adults acting on their childish willingness to also act of a younger age. They sled down the snow-covered hills with homemade sleds made of cardboard wrapped in plastic – it made me wonder how long those sleds would stay together. Parents were filming their children to capture the priceless moments of pure joy on their children’s faces as they flew down the hills in a weightless trance. Grandparents sitting on nearby benches covered in snow.

The falling snow slowly buried the city under a white blanket that residents fought to shovel away. Even dogs prancing around in the white powder were shaking off the snow as it packed itself into their fur coats. I, myself, did not last more than twenty minutes as I trudged around the part trying to capture the beauty of the freshly fallen snow with my compact camera. Eventually, I was driven back to the warmth of my apartment by the freezing, brisk winds as the storm continued on into the Saturday evening. 

In The Eyes Of Strangers

On a Sunday afternoon at about 4 o’clock in the afternoon, I sat myself down at a small round wooden table next to a ceiling-length window in a small coffee shop in downtown Manhattan. The snow had piled up against the window outside in the freezing air. A man in a big black coat wearing a pair of bulky glasses walked in with a slow still saunter, sitting down at a table within my periphery. I didn’t pay much attention to him until he slumped over catching his head on his hand resting on the table in front of him. His glasses slipped off and clattered to the floor and he began to weep. 

This man in tears, decorated in tattoos contrasting with his white skin and bald head was sitting in front of me bawling his eye out. When he had calmed down, a few minutes later, he got up to order. Swaying back and forth as he stepped toward the barista’s display of muffins. What had happened to put him in such a state? Was he going to be okay? He had begun banging his head against the table to calm himself down, which seemed to work more than I would expect. His face expressed his anxiety and his behavior was of a man in obvious distress. This was one of those moments when I saw a small sliver of time in which the pain a stranger is feeling comes to the surface. The pain that a stranger is trying to hide from others, but releases it in the eyes of strangers. 

When I see this type of weakness or heavy heart in someone whose name or background is unknown to me, it hits me differently. When the person in pain is a family member or friend, their pain is something you can sympathize with. But this foreign pain felt by a stranger is one that I can’t even begin to guess or create an imaginary picture of.

Check out the photos I took of the snow!