New York City, February 5, 2013

★★ Busy flurries at first light didn’t stay busy for long. The morning was dim, over wet pavement, as the snow went and came back and seemed to have gone again but was still there faintly when you turned around. It amounted to hanging dampness, a sort of articulated fog, something falling out of the grinding gears of a stalled-out winter. The moistness was maritime; the frigid continental Arctic seemed far, far off. An overgrown pickup truck ground its tire in a curbside slush puddle, backed up, and pulled away.