Snow in the City

Now this is snow. Normal accumulation for Boston for an entire winter is 42.2 inches.

As of January 25, 49.6 inches have graced this region. And 10-20 inches more are expected today and tomorrow. The snow is falling somewhere around an inch an hour right now -- a welcome diversion for a southern transplant with a soft spot for the white stuff on a cozy sabbatical morning but trying enough for the hardy, winter-proofed New Englanders. They are ready to get on with their lives.

Cities and snow don't really go together. The biggest problem of course is where to put it all? Forget about renting out parking spaces. Folks with any spare real estate could earn a bundle renting out dumping spaces (otherwise colloquially known as "snow farms"). It's seasonal income but it could be quite lucrative. (By the way, what did Philadelphia do with all that snow before the Eagles/Vikings game and how did they move it so fast?)

What is fascinating is how the snow changes sidewalk etiquette.

With so much snow piled up in such small public byways, often only a single lane is left to accommodate foot traffic. Everyone has to plan ahead.

The question is not who has the right-of-way. That smacks of rules, rights, claims and counter-claims. It is not that way at all. Rather the meeting is an exchange of gentility, graciousness, even chivalry. Upon approaching a narrow impasse one party steps aside, pausing in their journey, almost imperceptibly signaling to the on-comer that their advancement, their passage, may proceed uninhibited.

In return, a glance of gratitude, an ever-so-slight "pay-it-forward" nod of acknowledgment.

Sometimes you are the beneficiaries of such benevolence. Sometimes the bestower. It all seems to even out.

The other engaging snowy sidewalk culture is the ubiquitous presence of towering snowbanks, smoothed and rounded, looming up on either side as we wend our way through snow-bound walks.

This pristine palette of snow in easy reach of roving fingers and at perfect viewing height, is irresistibly transformed into ephemeral neighborhood billboards: proclaiming cupid's latest announcements, folksy admonitions uplifting spirits, "kilroy was here" prints made by tiny hands; or simply a lengthy tracing of wainscotting for those more rushed or less talented.

Public spaces in city-snow become unavoidably, self-consciously, even intentionally shared. We are made mindful that we are all in this together, that our lives, otherwise parallel, hidden and kept apart behind locked doors, are in truth intertwined. I could be here for you and you for me if only we so choose. If only we knew each other.

There are 8 apartments in this four-floor walk-up (whose square footage is probably, all told, no bigger than some local Baltimore McMansions). We have briefly met four owners, to date, in chance encounters on the stairs. But we have not been invited into their apartments, nor, for some reason, have we invited them into ours.

At least, not yet. Perhaps the snow will change that.

(Photo: Neighbor's house at the beginning of today's snowfall. I particularly like the arched "eyebrows" over each window. Except that they're an odd number.)