This is a community, isn't it everyone's snow?

I love New England. As much as I love the sun & the beach, I've been in Massachusetts my entire life, and I love it here. The spring, the fall, the summer, and even the....gulp....winter (sort of).

What I love about spring, summer, and fall are probably obvious. Flowers, and sunshine, the beach and the ocean, the foliage. What I love about the winter is less so. Sure, there's the first snowfall, there is hot cocoa, and there are adorable activities like snow angels and sledding. There's skiing, and there's tubing. There are cozy days by the fire, during which you don't need to feel bad when you do nothing but snuggle under a blanket all day long.

There are a fair amount of wonderful things about every season in my locale, but, when you live in New England, there are a fair amount of things not to enjoy about the winter.

First off, there are the resident "massholes" who take to extreme and obnoxious behavior. This is a year-round thing, but seems to intensify during the winter months. I notice this more than some others might, for in addition to driving to work, I have a dog that I walk the Cambridge Streets.

It begins when the cold arrives, and folks need to bundle up excessively just to walk down the road. The wind is brisk, and there is a chill down to the bone. Once folks break out the full winter gear, hat, scarves, gloves, hoods, parkas, etc, they reach a new level of rude. Perhaps this is due to the fact that with all that gear they feel more like knights or soldiers. So, they decide it's a good idea to throw everything they have ever been taught about manners out the window.

These cold-weather-crusaders take it upon themselves to cut other people off on the sidewalk, and to cut cars off so they can cross the street. They put their heads down and mumble insults at one another. Joe criticizes Bob for being in too much of a rush, failing to notice that his clothes are wet and he's freezing. Jane criticizes Nancy for not dressing her three-year-old warmly enough when walking him to daycare. Everyone becomes a critic, a comic, and a downright masshole. I don't love this element of winter.

As the days grow shorter, and the cold more intense, so do the knights of winter grow more gnarly, hateful, and bold. They become pale, and chapped, and tired looking.

And then comes snow.

We just had our first major snows last week, and I'll say, I love to see the snow falling for the first time every year. It's lovely to watch, and exciting. And it reminds me that I do love all the seasons, even if I am only able to love winter for a few fleeting moments. But once I head to the streets for the shoveling, this all fades away.

First off, I live on a street where parking is at a premium, even during the nicest weather months. Not only this, but the city has refused to see the light and make my road a one-way. This means that when there are cars parked on both sides of the street there is only one lane left in the middle, and I have witnessed many a standoff where two drivers sat bumper-to-bumper, both refusing to back up and let the other pass. Reminder: this is even during the nice-weather months!

The snow falls, and people go haywire. They start driving excessively slow, almost wrecklessly. They head outside to shovel their cars out, and it becomes a war over where to put the snow. Number 47 doesnt want you throwing it in his yard. Number 34 doesn't want it piled to close to his driveway. Number 65 throws his back in the street (which there are laws against, by the way). There are tiny, inept folks shoveling out their cars and sidewalks incessantly, while lookers-by care only about their own snow issues.

You'd think though, this is a community, isn't it everyone's snow?
Think again.

People begin to pull their cars out of spots to leave for greener pastures. Others move their cars further from the snowbanks on the sidewalks. Others just never pulled in correctly in the first place. And the plows can't fit down that skinny lane. And people don't understand why. And the panic sets in. And it all becomes mayhem.

Folks start acting crazy. They put chairs, and recycling bins in their parking spots to ensure that noone else parks in them while they are at the market. Folks move them, and park, with no other options, and return to their cars to find nasty notes, key marks on their paint, or to find that someone was so angry that they paid a person with a plow to snow them in all over again.

Everyone starts looking at everyone else as the person who marginalized or victimized them. Noone will talk to anyone else. The hi's and good mornings have ceased to exist. People watch others try to back into or out of parking spots, and get stuck, and they ignore it. They listen to the wheels spin, and the rubber burn, and they look the other way.

I sit there, wheels spinning. I've stuck cardboard, and pieces of wood under my tires, but I can't get traction. My undercarriage is stuck on a patch of ice that was too thick to break away. I'm a 5'4'' woman. I only have two arms, and two legs. I can't possibly cut the wheel, press the gas pedal, and push my own rear bumper. There are knights walking the streets. Their kamik boots crunching in the snow. Their north face jackets rustling. And they soldier by. Marching in perfect formation.

I am on an island.

This is winter in New England.
This makes me question my continued ability to love, the place I love.