My Nose is Frozen, My Scarf is Lovely, and I've Burrowed a Hole To Sleep Through It All

It snowed again today. When the snow is fresh like this, or even when it's been around for awhile, curbs disappear. Roads are defined by where cars drive and where plows clear the way. Plows also determine where pedestrians walk; their huge piles of snow determine if we can actually walk on the sidewalk or if we walk in the street because that's the clearest way. It's been plowed.

There are no sidewalk plows. On city streets, the owner of the property next to the public sidewalk determines how clear the sidewalk is. I love the business owners who shovel the sidewalk in front of their establishment. I often realistically contemplate sending out this letter; the contemplation comes most often when wading through snow where sidewalks should be.

On high-traffic sidewalks, like around the university, the path is determined by who walked there first. Everyone else follows their footsteps until a path is made. Two weeks ago, I was the first to walk out the apartments to the bus stop. I stumbled sideways while wading through fresh, mid-calf snow and made a sizable dent in my otherwise-straight footpath. On Saturday night, that dent was still there, widened and trampled by some number of people. Or just me, walking back and forth, grumbling all the while that the footpath had turned to ice.