A Love Letter to NYC During Winter - with a Healthy Dose of Complaining

Dear New York City, 

You are beautiful in the winter storm nyc. When the snow falls, you are magical– for one day. Then you become a nightmare!

I love the first days of winter, when the air finally grows cold — a relief from the oppressive summer. Pulling out my favorite winter coats, sweaters, hats, and scarves that I’d stashed away and wrapping myself up in the layers becomes a new ritual.  

I love when it first starts to snow, the thick flakes tumbling to the earth. It casts a spell over the city, lulling it into sleep. The calm silence that arrives brings me to a sense of deep peace. I AM ENCHANTED when I awake to snow-covered trees glittering in the sun or a blanketed white neighborhood without so much as a single a car driving. 

When a blizzard rolls through, I am filled with childlike giddiness and excitement. The cold days I spend at home wrapped in a cozy blanket, my favorite TV show playing, hot chocolate steaming, and my cat purring are perfection.  

And then there is the moment when the chaos of the city stills into quiet. The silence is so loud that I can hear myself breathe. New York, you are perfect in the winter.  

And then you aren’t!

Your soft, fresh snow barely lasts long enough to get an Instagram picture before the garbage trucks turned plows go roaring down my street, pushing snow and creating huge gravel-filled piles for me to wade through. 

People frantically shovel their sidewalks or are throwing snowballs — whichever they feel like. Since the city doesn’t clear the walks, there are long stretches of sidewalk where I still have to trudge through dirty snow. I’m not wearing snow boots, mind you, because I didn’t buy them because it, “never snows” in NYC. I mean, it did last year, but it didn’t the year before, so how am I supposed to know? Plus, where am I supposed to keep them? In the bathroom, with the snow shovel and my beach umbrellas?

Courtesy: Unsplash

The snow turns black from the dirt and yellow from countless dogs doing their business. I don’t even want to get started about the puddles at every crosswalk during the nyc winter. Don’t step in them! There is no bottom, and there is no way of getting home with dry shoes. 

Speaking of shoes, they are all stained. All of them. My favorite suede boots are chalked with white stains from the excessive salting of the roads.

If you have a car, don’t bother. I can’t get out because I’m plowed in. Even if I could get out, I’m not getting a spot when I come back. Someone took the parking spot that I worked so hard at a clearing, nearly breaking my snow shovel. Most people don’t even try to clear a place and choose to park DIAGONALLY! 

Then there is the constant fluctuation between hot and cold. I dress in all the layers because my face hurts when I go outside, but I’m hot and covered in a wet gross sweat by the time I reach the subway or my destination. My mask is frozen and somehow still damp and stuck to my face. 

It’s not even fun inside sometimes. My heat was turned on by the landlord and promptly forgotten about it. Even though it’s below freezing outside, I have the window open because I’m roasting. 

I forgot to go grocery shopping, so now I either have to go out into the storm or spend way too much on Seamless. Of course, then I get intense guilt that I made some poor soul go into a storm I refused to go into. 

Above all, the ice patch outside my apartment is obviously trying to kill me. It’s over 8 feet wide and runs into the road. The neighboring building has a pipe that gushes water randomly throughout the day. Someone placed a single orange cone, warning people of the ice. But that didn’t prevent me from slipping and almost falling twice last night! I called 311 and complained. The next day the fire department had a ladder on the roof, blocking traffic and causing an angry mob of honkers. I don’t know if they came because I called. The hot firefight’s presence must have been a coincidence because the ice patch is still here. 

But at the end of the day, I can’t seem to hold on to my anger. They say love is madness because I still love you NYC during the winter. 

Sincerely, 

Your passionate but angry lover 

Courtesy: Unsplash