schussed down to the canal path. We were about the only people down
there.
“It’s so quiet!” I said.
“We could be in Yellowstone!” he said.
We heard a few titmouses and cedar waxwings.
On our way back home, we passed an old Italian woman surveying
the shoveling work of some teenagers. She said, “So pretty out!” I
said, “No planes!” and her expression took on a revelatory look and
she laughed and said, “Brava! No planes!”
Then we skied back toward the house and I cheered on a man who
was almost done shoveling his epically buried car. We ran into some
neighbors we hadn’t seen in two years and found out one had been
undergoing cancer treatment. We talked for half an hour. We came
upon a pack of enterprising boys and hired them to shovel our
driveway. When they finished, they came in to watch the last plays of
a Broncos game along with our next-door neighbor, who brought
snacks. “It’s like a neighborhood again,” he said.
It was still the city, but it had been, if not taken over by natural
forces, at least temporarily matched by them. Nature asserted itself
and the city watched, and played.