This morning:

It is cold out, this morning, cold and crisp and sharp and clear. It is winter out; I can see my breath in the wind. There is snow on the ground, fresh and fallen, crisp and bright, reflecting the morning sunlight in diamond flakes. I have seen this effect before, when tiny pieces of bright plastic fall into the cotton-ball snow of a ceramic village and tremble, sparkling lamplight back in a catch-your-eye glitter. I have seen this morning before, with snow fallen fresh and soft, winter-cold on an empty campus. I have been here before.
Have I seen it, though, truly? Has this brilliance, fascinating as it is, struck my eye with such infinite poetry before? It must have, for this humming in my soul, this sudden contentment with the glint and silence of the light's play seems familiar somehow.
The sidewalks are slick; I walk on snow-covered grass and feel the sharp bite of the frozen air on my nose and my ears. Meeta is leaving; she has a long drive ahead of her, and she's already taken today's exam. It's not easy, she tells me. It doesn't matter. The worry and the fear and the driving frustration are as frozen as the morning, lost and far away. It doesn't matter. Nothing matters for these few moments but the stillness that surrounds me, leaching into my bones and cooling my blood, the crunch of feet on ice-ensheathed blades of glass, the smooth slick reflections of what, yesterday, were puddles on the pavement.
It is a moment, frozen, a moment to be remembered and embraced, sharp and still and cold as the coming winter. It is time; it is now.

now feeling:: refreshed

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