On Saturday I put on my coat and boots and stepped outside with a mission in mind: I was off to Rite Aid to buy some day-after-Valentine’s-Day candy. It was early afternoon and as I closed the door behind me I realized that it had started to snow, the tiny, sharp kind of snow that blows into your face but doesn’t prevent you from seeing where you’re going. It was cold, and I was glad I had bundled up, but it was warmer than some snowy days have been this winter, and as I walked along one of the main avenues in Park Slope I saw lots of people out and about.

Some were running errands like I was, groceries in hand or kids in strollers ahead of them. I saw more than one pair of childless adults pulling a sled – what a good idea! – and countless people waiting for the bus. I know life in New York doesn’t stop when it snows – I’ve struggled to and from work in enough snow and slush to be sure of that – but there was something neat about being out in a weekend afternoon snowstorm and seeing that everyone else was out too. Maybe it’s cabin fever, maybe it’s that when the temperature is right at freezing it starts to feel warmto us now, or maybe we just all have things to do regardless of what precipitation is falling from the sky.

But weirdly, this mid-February snowstorm made me feel like spring might finally come, that the days of holing up with Netflix might almost be over, and that today’s snowstorm could be the last. I mean, the end of the week is supposed to be fifty degrees!

What do you think – is spring coming?