To Have and to Hold: My Vinyl Year

Serves me right. Last time I wrote one of these things, I had some snarky words to say about poet-songwriters being depressed in New York in the winter. So naturally I found myself on a train heading to New York about 6 or 8 hours before a blizzard was scheduled to hit. To be honest, I was giddy. Manhattan in the snow. And me without a car to get stuck, without a walkway to shovel. Without my kids with me, I felt like one: I owed the world nothing. Let the snow fall. Let the city get pummeled. Let the magic happen. And it happened. When it hit, it came down sideways. The wind screeched against uncountable fences, grates, and walls. With my N95 mask on, my breath fogged my sunglasses. Without the sunglasses, I was blinded. I trudged and slipped past more than one church. I didn’t stop in and pretend to pray, but I could see the logic in it. But all that happened several hours after I arrived. I did get in a decent amount of time to wander about without a bunch of weather in my fac...