From Alexandrious, handa, and gwarf came a post of “Blizzard in Alleyway, Downtown NYC.” Aside from its simple beauty, this photo reminded me of one of the happier times in my life.
I was still drinking and a student at Bard when I spent a long weekend in New York with friends; it was the sort of miraculously tempered bender which involves enough debauchery and intoxication to seem memorable (even if not everything was remembered) without there being any weirdness, darkness, or anguish.
One night, after being asked to leave some dive and proceeding to a confusingly-arranged “martini bar” at which we only drank bourbon, we emerged late in the night to a sudden blanket of deep and still snow. The indomitable kinetics of the city were paused: nothing moved, no cars were on the streets, the intersections’ lights shone unattended on the drifts, and only the occasional cluster of pedestrians joined us as we sang songs and stumbled home.
At the time, I wore cowboy boots which had holes in them; my feet were numb from icy water, but I was in the highest sort of spirits as I hung on a girl who let me hold her without expecting that I’d kiss her: like an early adolescent, I was happy with the simplicity of arms wrapped around bodies. We went through the silent city to her apartment, where we slept next to one another.
In the afternoon, when we woke, we were stunned to see that the winter caesura had been short-lived; everything was alive and humming, and the sun was as bright as in the summer.
Walker Percy often talked of how severely inclement weather, and even real disasters, produce a giddiness in those not immediately struggling to live: here, at last, is a break from all routines, an interruption of the oppressively constant rythyms of civilization, a return to real freedom: no work, no time, no transit, nothing but life.
The day of Katrina, I remembered his words. He noted that such freedom isn’t without cost, and for those drowning or pulling bodies through water the comfort of society is more meaningful than the existential thrill of paddling down what was a commuter avenue in a canoe, or sitting in the dark listening to the thunder while friends try to eat all the food before it rots.
Still: there’s nothing like a city shut down when you’re singing with friends.
