alwaystheocean

It was beautifully quiet today. The snow helped, of course, and the snow was the cause - people staying home, cars not getting driven, taxis not cruising for passengers. Helicopters and planes staying on the ground. It took me a while to realize I wasn't hearing the usual sounds. When the snow let up and people started driving again, I honestly felt resentful that the travel ban wasn't going on longer. It'd been a nice glimpse into a quieter New York City. I feel like that's how it always is. Just a glimpse of a better world.

Or at least, a moment to resettle so I can realize just how noisy the West Side Highway really is. I went down to the park to walk a bit in the afternoon, after the snow stopped, and I don't mind noise from kids that are shouting about how happy they are or what a good time they're having when they're sledding down a big hill, or noise from people talking about an inflatable toy's weight limit before sledding down the big hill themselves. Human voices. There were a couple of shrieks right near me for some reason, and of course a very loud barking dog that its owner insisted was friendly, and overall, just nice sounds of people.

I had my headband on and my hood up, and both those things helped muffle the world. The coat itself was warm enough that when I lay back in the snow, twice, I stayed comfortable enough to settle in for a little bit. Not many minutes, but enough time to measure on a stopwatch, easily.

There were several taped-off CAUTION areas around fallen trees and threatening branches, and I found it wonderful that people had already made a single-file path underneath one of the trees in between the branches - sticking as close to the path that the tree had fallen over as best they all could. Ducking down to get under and through. A little ways away there was a bower made from bushes bent over with snow that also provided something of a roof, and some parents took pictures of their kids hanging out in there and posing at the entrance. It made for a nice echo of both adults and children doing more or less the same thing, if on different scales. The intent of play was close enough to call it the same.

There were snow men, snow women, snow people, and snow animals. There were snow structures made from hand packing it and snow structures made from using plastic bins to mold sturdy bricks. There was a moment I saw the sky start to come out and felt a pang of disappointment because it meant the day was moving on from the storm. I'd fallen back into the snow already then, and made a point to do it a second time. If I'd been more careful with my legs not getting wet, I'd have lain there a while longer. But I knew the day was going, so I might as well go, too, so I wouldn't have to see it end.

The travel ban's up. Schools are going back to remote learning. Nobody's going anywhere if they can help it. I'd figured this was coming, and it's nice that it's settling in. The snow's coming down steadily and I can faintly hear human voices - going from where the light's coming from, the people in the next building over are either hosting some friends or having a very loud party by themselves. Either way, it's warm human voices on a cold night.

Not a dark night, though. The clouds aren't letting that happen. It's one of the nicer parts of nighttime snow.

Friday night dinner this week was still with family: out in Brooklyn. My parents weren't in town but my brothers were, so I went out to them since that was easiest for everyone. There and back was easy, thanks to not waiting long for a train to arrive and for finding one of the trains was running express that afternoon. The dinner itself went okay, and when my brother J., his wife E., and their daughter A. were around, I spent most of the time in the kitchen with my brother R. so his wife G. could spend time with J.'s family - I peeked out into the living room a couple times and they were all chatting and looking at something on someone's phone, and I thought it better not to intrude.

An amusing moment came partway through dinner. Weather came up, and I was the only one who expressed any pleasure at the idea of snow. I pointed out that this was the kind of weather we used to have, getting snow at the end of February. B., one of G.'s friends who'd come as well, said she'd grown up in the Midwest and was aware of that. At the time, I didn't think to point out I was talking pre-Industrial Revolution. It's probably just as well; later in the meal, she said she didn't want to feel like life was full of construction zones, that she'd had times of at least a couple things going smoothly, and I struggled to relate. A good person to talk to, and someone with a life fairly removed from mine.

I took advantage of the day and took in a small William Eggleston exhibition. I started reading Clockers on the way there and a book that commanding of my attention put me in the right frame of mind to take in the colors. And the colors were why it was there - it's called The Last Dyes because these prints, the ones I saw today, were made with the world's last materials for this kind of printmaking. Kodak decided to stop making the necessary materials for the process some decades ago. I don't know if it was for cost, environmental concerns, lack of a market, another reason, or a mix of several. What I can say is that all the critics were right: knowing that going in gave it an autumnal feeling. Something fading out.

They were also right that it's astonishing to see the colors up close. More than once I got as close as I could to take in the depth of blue or red or green, thinking that it was like seeing paint made from crushed-up gemstones. The intensity of color, the intentions of the lines and shapes. I'm happy to watch his fascinations with what makes America tick, and I was very happy to stop and look close and then step back and look far and take in all the different parts and pieces in the compositions. More than once I looked at something off in the distance and then farther in the distance and saw how it was a reflection of something in the foreground. Walls and fences at a parking lot. The swirl of a sign matching the clouds behind it. The flowers, the fence, the truck, the houses peeking out.

What really struck me was how the outdoor photographs had such good distance to them. There wasn't a horizon but there was clarity to a long ways away, and more than once I'd think that this was human influence as far as the eye could see. The tilled fields. The cars off in the far distance. The car right up in front of you that you couldn't look away from even if you wanted to see the stream just beyond it. Forcing you to pay attention to what's really there.