Wherein I finally post something I wrote in the depth of winter

Spring. Sprang. Sprung.  It is coming.  I can see the ground again!  That said, I wrote the following some time ago and neglected to post it.  Since we keep a copy of this material for posterity here goes...

Written some time in February

I tend to see weather discussion as a necessary evil -- just pleasantries really.  It is the thing that tells your client, or the person on the other end of the call, that you are not a robot.  Sure, I like exciting weather as much as the next gal, but other than hurricanes or something, weather is usually just biding your time before getting to the real topic you mean to be discussing.

Then I lived in Boston in the winter of 2014-2015.

I've actually tried to refrain from talking about the weather recently because it seems like all there is to talk about.  IT IS SO BORING.

Only it isn't.  And the truth is that it is rare for so many people to have a kind of a shared experience we have been having.  I see my neighbors all the time because we are out in our yards grunting and hurling snow around in an effort to locate our cars, front doors, mail boxes.

So, I need to share a few things that sort of encapsulate the winter for me.

• My lower back has hurt for more than a month and a half.  Yesterday I less than gracefully toppled into a snow bank trying to lift a shovel over my head. I don't think any of the neighbors saw.  Next year, we will snow throw with legitimate and gas-guzzling equipment.  I'm over this.
• Yesterday, while attempting to retrieve some sleds and shovels for an out of town friend (she was afraid they'd be buried), I postholed up to my armpits and didn't actually touch the ground.  Postholing is a hiking term that aptly describes what happens when you walk on snow without snowshoes.  In that moment I saw the divine spirit teaching me a lesson.  I shouldn't have laughed at Em when it happened to her and she got stuck.  Don't think the neighbors saw that either.  I got out with quite a bit of work and after a nice panic.  The family was out of town.  How long would it take for someone to find me?
• We were supposed to get 8-12 on Sunday and the last I heard was more than 16".  That makes for more than 96" in my town this year. That is 3/4ths of the way to a story of snow without the drifts. [We've now bested the record of 106"+.]
• Today my car's digital display took about 2 minutes to become fully operational because, I think, at -2 degrees, it was frozen.  I guess that can happen to the electronic goo in an LCD?
• Don't get me started on the ice dams or the fact that I might hang salt-filled pantyhose out of my windows to deal with them.  It sounds like a prank you'd pull on someone just to see how dumb they really are.  "No, dude, you hang pantyhose out your window.  Seriously!"

So I try to make light because, well, that is what I do.  And, at the risk of veering away from my usual humorous take on all things, I am constantly reminded that this really isn't that big a deal for me because we are incredibly fortunate.  We don't depend on public transportation, struggle with childcare or heating our home, or have hourly or inflexible jobs.

We will be fine and have interesting stories to tell about how crazy the winter was.  Others haven't been so lucky.  And I am not sure what you do with that.

With a public policy degree behind me, I think some of the answer must be more engagement.  Something - for a variety of reasons - I haven't done much of in Boston.  Because, at the end of the day, many of the political bargains we make have disparate impacts on the communities around us -- bargains about housing, infrastructure and transportation, budget priorities.  One of the great things that has come of all of the digging out is chatting with neighbors and people helping each other.  The question is how to you meaningfully extend that beyond your block?