While Boston and the Northeast were socked with Nemo, or whatever cartoon character the National Weather Bureau decided to call our recent round of winter storms, it seemed that Chicago pretty much dodged the big white blanket. We’ve barely had a few flurries this season – at least up until Friday.

You wouldn’t have understood the actual scale of our little blizzard based on Thursday’s newscasts. Every major network, led off their five-o’clock broadcasts with news about the approaching weather front. Perfectly coiffed reporters, in their best Eddie Bauer parkas, were stationed in front of heavily traveled toll roads as salt trucks rumbled behind them. Who’d think that a little snow in the heart of the Midwest should be such big news, but fierce snowfalls have crippled our town before and elections have been lost because streets did not get cleaned soon enough.

Before the announced storm hit, I shopped for staples and made sure I knew where my good boots were, the water-proofed ones with the fake fur lining and dependable zippers. John and I made dinner at the usual time then settled in for an evening on the couch in front of the TV. We took turns getting up and looking through the blinds to see when Whipple Street would start looking like It’s a Wonderful Life’s quaint town of Bedford Falls on Christmas. The forecasters were calling for four to six inches, falling mostly between nine o’clock and morning.

On Friday morning, I opened our back door to see an undisturbed layer of sparkly white powder, probably around four inches thick. Ah, how beautiful snow is — at least until people start tracking through it. Before John left for work, he dusted off the steps from our upstairs tenants’ rear landing down to the concrete below our steps and then chiseled out the narrowest of channels leading to the garbage cans in the alley with one short pass of a shovel. We agreed that I would come back out and do a more complete snow removal job later.

When I did walk outside later in the morning, our upstairs neighbors had not yet gone to their car, Except for the narrow groove John forged, the rest of our concrete parking pad was covered with a layer of pristine snow. I had only 45 minutes to make footing it to the alley easy and clear paths along the side of our building, the section of sidewalk in front, and our front stairs (a small courtesy for the postman).

I bent over, shovel in hand, and began experimenting with different strategies. Sometimes, I dug the edge of the shovel down as deeply as I could, until I could hear it scrape against the concrete. I’d scoop up medium weighted loads and toss them to where I imagined the edge of our lawn began. Sometimes I chose the push method, where I would plant the bottom of the shovel against the hard surface and brace myself against the top of the handle, exerting practically all my weight, and drive the shovel forward in a line, pushing the pile of snow in front of me until I could make no more forward progress. I only cleared one shovel width wide of a path along the side of our building figuring it rarely saw traffic, but shoveled the full width of the front sidewalk, mostly, I think, because the neighbor’s did, and made sure the front steps were clean, clean, clean.

I felt my hair was getting matted up, and I could feel my clothes clinging to my body underneath my quilted coat. The snow had basically stopped falling hours earlier, but I saw occasional flakes fall and I opened up my mouth to catch them. I noticed my hips were a little tight, but my shoulders felt unexpectedly loose. I wasn’t cold at all. I was enjoying myself.

I declared my job complete at the appointed time, complete enough, and smiled at having finished the job.

Sometimes in my life, I have prayed for a clear path. It seems only natural to wish someone traveled my route before me to make my steps easier. But then again, I decided that when you can find pleasure in the sensation of sweat dripping from your forehead each time you lift a shovel-full of snow, you can’t help but be grateful that you’ve just been given a shovel.

Being able to clear your own path is no small thing.