New York City, February 22, 2015

★★★ The whiteness of the new-fallen snow was augmented by the whiteness of the fog coming off its rapid decay. The clouds thinned away, but waterproof boots were more necessary by the minute as the warmth rose and meltwater fell like a sun shower. Cars left on a downslope sat with their front wheels in slush ponds, dammed by the ice banks between them. On the far end of 66th Street, someone lead-footed toward West End, wheels smashing through the slush in the roadway. Tobogganers launched themselves down the menacing steep slope falling away from Trumpville, sliding all the way to where the snow gave way to slush gave way to mud in the shelter of the elevated highway. A score of Canada geese, looking shaggy and megafaunal, fed in the muck and puddles there. The Hudson seen from straight above was Army-surplus green; from an angle, it was a dusty and rippled mirror. Ice floes had run aground in the shallows: one big enough to park a car on, another tipped up to show its many layers, the color of dirty teeth. The top was white, twinkling in coarse grains. Lesser chunks — the size of fists or sporting goods or the occasional king-sized pillow — passed under the pier at a brisk walking pace. Most of the ice was away toward New Jersey. By the ramp back uphill, water pouring from the expressway raised a froth at the foot of a pillar. A soggy snowman wore snapped-off sprigs of a late discarded Christmas tree for hair.