On Monday, it snowed for most of the day with big quiet flakes that clung to everything they touched. For a while, the view from my window narrowed down to a hundred shades of white and gray. When the snow stopped, I heard the first scraping sounds of shoveling. Then a county truck rumbled along the street, adding a deeper-toned scraping, accompanied by the faint clatter of salt hitting pavement. Then the afternoon sun came out, bathing the tree across the street in warmer tones, beautiful but ephemeral.