Thinking in the Manhattan snow

Snow scene in big city seems so gentle to me, while I feel desolation or severity for snow in countryside. "The city and me seem to be more intimate in snow" Is it special feeling only to me? The scene, the people and the things happen on a snowy day, why is it strongly impressed in my mind? I don't have the experience living in snowy area. So those are a kind of special day through the year. Is it only reason for the feeling?

However, I had experienced more snowy days when I was in New York. And I really loved walking around the city in snow. In a snowy night, I went around to go home from the photo school even late at night. The park which had crowd in the day time was very quiet in snow light. Skyscrapers were illuminated in a snow haze. Mercury lights and illuminations of show window lighted up the snowy street. A passing cab splashed up the slush. In the corner of cross section melted snow made a ditch. Parking cars, trees in the park were all covered by the same white veil. Perhaps, it's the reason why I feel some intimacy with the city that everything was covered by the same material, snow.

Several days ago, I knew my ex-superior had passed away. After I quitted the company in Tokyo, he moved to the NYC bureau. So I visited his office a couple of times. The last time I met him was a snowy day. It's freezing winter that NY got heavy snow many times and NY Bay was covered by thousands of drift ices which was flown from the Hudson river.

We got together at his office in Rockefeller Center, and walked down the mid town of Manhattan putting hands in the pockets. We stopped by the Japanese restaurant and had the hot food served in the pot. We toasted with sake for the reunion in New York, and talked about the life in NYC, the family, the old colleagues, and the things in the company after I had left. We had chatted until closing time, and we moved to a pizza shop walking on snowy street. Then we talked again over a dollar and forty cent pizza and coffee.

In hard snow, we had waited at the bus stop on the middle of slope. However it's 1 o'clock in the morning and heavily snowing , the bus hardly came up. The Hispanic family who covered their head with scarfs looked waiting much longer than us. So I asked them in Spanish. They had already waited for more than 40 minutes.
"Hey, when did you learn the Spanish?" the ex-superior asked to me. "Well, I have a lot of <must speak Spanish>situation here in New York ..... " I answered. "You looked like a Latin person when you spoke in Spanish, huh?" "By the way, Spanish is one of the most mismatched language for a heavy snow night, I think" We laughed.

There were no sign for the bus coming. I felt very sorry to him for waiting with me. Because his condominium was just two blocks away. So I decided to take subway. "OK. So I'm gone walk down to my condominium. Good night. I'll see you in Tokyo."We shook hands.

I crossed the street and looked back. I saw he was walking down the slope. Manhattan was still in a heavy snow. After all, we have not met again in Tokyo and forever.