Snow and snow and snow this morning.

Last night, when we stepped into the cold air after the symphony concert, flakes were swirling in the downtown squares, the trees in the parks glittered with lights--airy spheres of yellows, blues, greens--concertgoers clogged traffic with their coats and boots and chatter . . . it was as if the city were acting a part in a film about an evening in the city.

And then I drove home, slowly, on the snowy streets, sweeping along behind a stream of tail lights heading toward the highway, turning away from them onto the boulevard that skirts the frozen cove, and then up hill among the small houses, past the Asian market and the halal market and the tax preparer's storefront with its screaming neon promises, past the hairdresser and the barber and the tanning salon and the dark coffee shop, past the plate-glass restaurant and the art-supply store and the church with its lighted steeple, onto our narrow street sheeted with snow, curtains drawn in the houses, the children already in bed, blue glimmer of television beyond the blinds . . .

I still can't quite fathom that I live here.