Everything takes longer; everything is a hassle and a waste. The smallest action is made more difficult by heavy clothes and stiff, gloved fingers. The snowdrift between me and my destination is always exactly two inches taller than whatever footwear I’m wearing. I hate the uncertain footing; the missed patch of ice on the back steps, the sick sweating moment when falling is inevitable. I hate shovelling snow; I much prefer sweating in the garden in tank top and shorts to doing it under heavy layers of coat and long underwear.
But from my firm’s conference room on the ninth floor, I can see downtown 15 miles away, lit by cold late afternoon sunlight the color of frozen peaches. What I can see of the sunset is in the same icy palette-cool salmon pink; silver-gold; a delicate, crystalline orange. I know the city to be full of commerce and bustle; reeking of too many people and their fossil fuels; the constant din of honking horns and thousands of one-sided cellphone conversations driving out all thought. From here, though, the stolid office buildings, their hard edges softened by the unearthly light, are ethereal spires, glowing like molten gold. The city looks as if it is carved of alabaster and rose quartz; gilded; fragrant with precious woods and ever-blooming flowers; a strand of distant, piping notes echoing through its streets. The lost fairy city of Chicago floats in the clouds of distance and movement, and dreams in the last rays of the setting sun.
