First Snow

Walking home late at night from a friend's birthday party, full of pear brandy and conchiglie and cranberry-vanilla cake, I find the world transformed by the first snow of the year.

I'm bundled up in a big black muppet-fur coat & red wool scarf, glad of the gloves I dug out of the winter clothes bin, gladder still that I wore these clunky black boots & thick wool socks, though they must have looked a little strange with the party dress. Despite two recent muggings in the neighborhood, I've chosen to walk solo -- because it was close enough that it seemed silly to drive, because I've been craving a little fresh air, because I'm unwilling to be scared out of an activity that brings me such pleasure.

I trudge along a silent street and then follow a dark staircase up a wooded slope. The streets are empty, mostly. A car sits idling, radio playing a song I can't quite make out; when the door opens to admit a passenger, I realize it's Joe Cocker -- "I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends."

On Hudson Street I stop under a willow for a moment, munching on a chunk of snow and thinking about the dozen women I just had dinner with -- their different paths in life, their interconnections through kids and work and school, and the constellation we form around our hostess, the birthday girl. Standing under this tent of glistening branches, I can almost feel the long arc of these life-long friendships -- the decades behind us and those yet to come.

On 46th I greet a pair of snow sculptors who are heaving their snowman's second ball up onto the top of their rockery. They've pretty much had to scrape the yard dry to produce it. I suppress a sudden urge to wing a snowball at the one in the jester's hat, but content myself with hitting a crosswalk sign dead-center instead. The pedestrian silhouettes quiver at the impact, and a thin layer of snow slides off the yellow sign onto the pavement. It's so satisfying that I keep scraping up handfuls of snow off the parked cars as I walk along, packing them into balls, and pitching them at stop signs, telephone poles, or just straight down the empty street.

I'm a terrible shot, mostly. Fortunately so are the neighbors I encounter a little further down the road, crouched behind cars lobbing snowballs at each other, and at me as soon as I'm in range. I join in the fight for a bit, and then wave farewell and keep walking.