Shoveling Snow

The snowstorm that arrived shortly before Christmas left a legacy of ice that has kept supers in my neighborhood busy. Sometimes they have little helpers. The other day, a mother and her young daughter were hard at work dispatching a light dusting, a gift of afternoon flurries. A biting wind whipped off the nearby Hudson, and the mother worked quickly. The little girl, excited with importance, pranced behind her. The girl, dressed head to toe in pink, used her left hand to scrape the sidewalk with a miniature snow shovel. In her right, she held a pink-sequined handbag. She swung it wide, careful not to dirty it with the work at hand.

New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve and the snow is falling fast. The windows in the employees' lunch room look onto a Hudson obscured by dense white clouds. Snowflakes stick to the window panes and threaten to form a crust. The Greek man who runs the lunch room, and who usually pretends not to know me, wishes me a Happy New Year as he rings up my soup. People smile (genuinely) in the hallways. After the enforced joviality of the holidays, New Year's Eve is a welcome rebirth, a renewal of hope.

Winter

The first snowfall is trying to arrive. The temperature has been waiting for it all week. Too cold to walk to work anymore, and the Rose Man wasn't on his corner this Friday. The wind whips off the Hudson and swirls around Fort Tryon Park where I went running this morning. My dog and I maneuvered up and down ice-covered paths, concentrating hard, trying not to slip. We made it to the river, where my dog looked up at me with eyes made tearful by the wind. Why are you doing this to me, his eyes questioned. I had the same question for myself. Three hours later I am still trying to coax the chill out of my bones.

Winter for Real

Winter has taken up shop in NYC. People have become introverted and reclusive, locking themselves away from the cold and each other. It was a few minutes past five, but already pitch black when I went running tonight. I dressed up in those special high-tech clothes that are supposed to wick away cold, but really just cost a lot of money and make you smell funny. Most of the leaves have fallen off the trees now. I swished my feet through thick puddles of them and felt like a kid. Standing on the Linden Terrace, the view of the Hudson opened up more widely in front of me. Most of the trees have turned into skeletons. But the George Washington Bridge has come alive. It winked at me with its outline of twinkling lights. I was alone and it could have been midnight.