coexistence

Downtown was a disaster this morning. Cars driving on wet, slushy black streets. People walking on icy sidewalks, using muddy crosswalks. Piles of dirt-peppered snow lining all the curbs. Shop owners at work with their snow shovels and salt beneath the busy feet of morning commuters. Chunks of snow and ice falling with the wind from the tops of the buildings. Snow dusting the street below the train tracks after a train goes by--every 7 minutes during rush hour. A layer of dirt, water, and salt lining the floors of the building entrances. Everything is chaotic compared to its usual bustling precision, yet there are a few patches of glistening snow that remain pristine. A layer on the sills of some windows, an outline on some of the building decor, a light powder dusting the planters. Every so often, too, amidst the piles of dirty snow and ice, plowed and shoveled into submission, there is a patch of snow that remains untouched on a forgotten corner somewhere. No one has needed to step through it with their booted feet. It has not wandered in the path of any shovel: it is smooth and as white as the day it fell.