NEW YORKERS IN A WINTER STORM

The moment it snows, New Yorkers become completely unrecognizable. Not emotionally -- physically. Suddenly everyone is shorter, squatter, wider, and dressed like they’re headed out to milk a cow at dawn, despite living three blocks from a Sephora.

All sense of proportion disappears. Coats balloon. Scarves multiply. Hats are pulled so low they erase eyebrows, identities, and in some cases, dignity. You lock eyes with someone you’ve known for fifteen years and still think, Is that my dentist? Or a man who owns several goats?

In fair conditions, New Yorkers are all sharp lines and angles. Black coats cut like architecture. Boots that say, I walk fast and judge faster. But add wind, sleet, and sidewalks that are 70% ice and 30% something no one wants to identify, and suddenly we’re bundled into rounded, anonymous shapes shuffling forward with grim determination.

Fashion rules vanish. Items that would normally never touch -- a puffer jacket, hiking boot, mystery fleece, scarf that appears to be a blanket—are layered together with confidence. Or resignation. Someone passes you wearing what can only be described as everything they own.

And the faces? Well, they're gone. Completely gone. All you see are noses—red, shiny, furious—emerging briefly from fabric cocoons to inhale sharply before retreating again. No one smiles because no one can feel their face. We don’t walk anymore. We trudge. We slide. We do that careful half-step that says, I have fallen before and I will not be embarrassed again.

The city becomes a place of mutual non-recognition. You pass friends, neighbors, coworkers, possibly your spouse, and think, That person feels familiar, but I refuse to investigate.

Because in a storm, New Yorkers don’t socialize per se. We survive. We duck into bodegas not to buy anything, but to feel something, mainly our hands. We walk dogs with visible resentment while the dogs experience the best day of their lives.

And when it’s over, when the snow melts and the sun comes back, we shed our layers, re-emerge taller and sleeker, and pretend none of it happened.

But we know.

We saw each other, dressed like resilient root vegetables, clutching our matchas like they were the last straws of civilization, just trying to make it home.