(This is one of the most personal pieces of writing about myself and my snow photography that I have ever shared. It includes Cure lyrics, a smattering of beautiful painful memories, etc. It was shared 5 years ago when my book New York in the Snow made it into The NY Times.)
It's early morning. I am 10 years old.
I'm sitting at the kitchen table furiously scribbling details onto a blueprint that I've painstakingly drawn over the course of the last five days.
The blueprint is for my own chocolate factory fueled by my fourth reading of Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
The drawing and its details are etched onto blank newsprint sheets that my family refers to as scrap paper.
My father fell into his job as a union pressman for the Daily News out of necessity.
He had just moved to New York City with next to nothing aside from his wife, a suitcase full of clothing, and a few dollars.
Having only completed a Junior High School level education in the poor farming community he lived in growing up, he didn't have a lot of choice when it came to joining the workforce.
When someone introduced him to the newspaper Pressman's Union, his life changed. The union took him in and trained him in the brute art of loading printing presses endlessly.
He worked nights for the next 20 years loading printing presses for the Daily News. His knees and back suffered as did his general mood. He was an irascible character that I rarely saw. But he was an irascible character that kept a roof over our heads and food in our stomachs.
In 1993, he moved from loading printing presses for the Daily News to doing the same exact thing for the New York Times. This was a huge deal for him. Even though he was still breaking his back literally and metaphorically, the clout of working for the Times vs the Daily News was enough to make him smile (a rarity) and celebrate when he got confirmation of the upward move to the Times.
I grew up with an understanding that the New York Times was a paper that held weight in the minds of many. But it was the place where other people got mentioned and written about. It was a place to admire other people, not the people I grew up with or even people like myself who were living on the bitter edges of poverty barely eeking out an existence.
Because of my father, I grew up with newspaper.
I relished the large amounts of blank newsprint scrap paper that existed in our house. It was the kindling for my escapist imagination.
On this blank newsprint canvas I would scrawl out information about my endless Dungeon and Dragons campaigns and story arcs, and draw blueprints for my future fantasy wardrobes reminiscent of the one in Chronicles of Narnia.
It's a grim, rainy afternoon. I am 25 years old.
I have just celebrated my birthday and I am sitting on a couch I rescued from the trash at one point.
I have been living on my own for the last seven years having been disowned by my parents due to religious differences.
The only break in the loud silence of being disowned came in the form of a phone call from my mother when I was 20 years old. She called to let me know that my father died.
I start listening to a Sigur Ros album.
The music swells to an emotive crescendo. It's the type of crescendo that propagates self-reflection. I start to try to imagine my future and start bawling. It's not pretty tears that I cry but rather it's soul-wrenching ugly streams of futility and despair that pour down my face.
I've been working seven days a week in dead-end jobs for years and I am so tired.
My roommate and his girlfriend come home right at that moment. He sees me on the couch bawling and sits next to me. Without any words exchanged, we hug for a good half hour while I sob uncontrollably. I feel his ribs poking out and it reminds me of how fragile existence is.
I go to sleep that night the same way I have been going to sleep for years, recalling a blizzard that happened when I was a child.
My father had to stay home from work that night since the trains were not running. Our neighbors offered use of their sleds and my parents happily took them up on the offer.
As soon as my father stepped outside, his face erupted into a huge grin as he pulled me and my brothers on the sled through the streets of Flushing.
The wind kissed our faces and the snow swirled like confetti in a ticker-tape parade.
I looked up at the street lights and realized that in that moment, everything was full of wonder and magic.
And I returned to this moment every night for years when bedtime was the only thing I looked forward to.
It's almost midnight. It's the Winter of 2012.
I am feverishly checking the weather forecast to figure out when the first snowflakes will fall to the ground.
I listen to The Cure - Plainsong on repeat. It's my ritual before every snowstorm.
The chimes start and as the lyrics kick in, I get goosebumps:
"I think it's dark and it looks like it's rain, you said
And the wind is blowing like it's the end of the world, you said
And it's so cold, it's like the cold if you were dead
And you smiled for a second
I think I'm old and I'm feeling pain, you said
And it's all running out like it's the end of the world, you said
And it's so cold, it's like the cold if you were dead
And you smiled for a second
Sometimes you make me feel
Like I'm living at the edge of the world
Like I'm living at the edge of the world
It's just the way I smile, you said"
I have felt like I've been living at the edge of the world for what seems like an eternity.
It's these lyics I hear in my mind when I walk seven or eight miles in snowstorms trying to capture what loneliness, isolation, and nostalgia have felt like trying to survive alone in New York City.
I lose myself everytime I go out in the snow.
I lose the feeling of hunger gnawing its way through my stomach for years.
I lose the crushing feeling of futility I used to feel heading to endless dead-end jobs hoping to keep the lights on for another month.
I lose the years of wondering if my family ever thinks of me.
I lose the bits of myself that suffered the most.
I lose the anger, the sadness, the loss.
I am cleansed by the flakes as they flutter in the night air and land on my nose and eyelashes.
I am, momentarily, that child in my neighbor's sled looking up at streetlights marveling at the wonder of existence.
I open the New York Times and see my book, New York in the Snow, staring back at me.
I grin for what seems like an eternity.
(shared before another season of sharing my snow photography)
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