Kevin Gutting Photo

Some shiver; some don’t. Some stamp their feet to keep warm, while others sit on benches and hug themselves. When the wind dies down, the March sun almost feels warm. Spring is coming, supposedly, but on this Tuesday the temperature at this Northampton Main Street bus shelter is 25 degrees.

Bundled-up commuters stare into space. Headphone cords sprout from underneath thick scarves. Boots crunch. Breath clouds. Numb fingers tap smartphone screens.

Across the street, an occasional car grazes the curb, and the tires make gritty popping noises on the ice and half-melted snow in the gutters. Other sounds — an ambulance siren, the rolling rumble of snow tires on pavement, the high-up roar of a passenger jet — are just faded background noise. More than anything, it’s quiet.

This is not the most beautiful spot in Northampton. Next door, the waist-high snow on the front lawn of the Academy of Music shines a pristine white. Here at the bus stop, the muddy stamped-down sludge underfoot is littered with cigarette butts and a spilled bag of throat lozenges from CVS. Behind a recycling bin, which brims with empty water bottles and paper coffee cups, a red shopping cart lies half-buried and abandoned in a snowdrift on the edge of Pulaski Park.

Only in rare moments do the plexiglass walls of the shelter keep out the wind. Melting snow drips from the edges of the grimy plastic roof. The two wooden benches are stained with dried mud. A set of four rusty keys on one bench goes unclaimed.

Madeline Parsons is wearing at least three layers. She stands curbside, waiting on the 43 bus. She’s a student at UMass, and she catches a 7 a.m. bus to Northampton twice a week to intern at an adoption agency. Those early mornings, she says, have been “fucking cold.” You either have to wait until the last possible minute to run to the bus stop, she says, “or change your attitude about the cold. It is what it is.”

On a nearby bench sits Gretchen Feist, who sips at a bright-red iced drink from Dunkin’ Donuts. Her winter hat is knit to look like the cartoon character Hello Kitty. Feist is unemployed, and she’s planning to take the 43 to Hadley, just “to poke around.”

Feist rides Valley bus routes a few times a week. One time, she says, she started dating a guy she met on the bus in Holyoke. “You meet all sorts of people on the bus. You see a little bit of everything.”

A new blast of wind rushes down Main Street. When I ask Feist about the cold, she shrugs. “You adapt. It’s New England. Whatever.”

— Contact Hunter Styles at hstyles@valleyadvocate.com