Snow

It started snowing at about nine o’clock on Monday evening. It started settling. I love watching snow. I like most forms of weather, really; I will peer out of the window like a dog or a small child watching whatever falls from the sky. But snow is particularly good: the way it tumbles so gracefully, and sparkles in the light from the window, and reflects the streetlights back to the sky and turns everything orange. I put my arm outside the French window to catch a flake on the sleeve of my dressing gown; it melted before I could get a proper look at it. I kept putting my head behind the curtain to see if it was still coming down.

And then I started feeling guilty about enjoying it. Because probably the snow was going to inconvenience some people. Possibly it was going to hurt some people.

And then I realised that my feelings about snow, whichever way I tried to push them, would make no difference whatsoever to the fact of the snow, and that my enjoying it doesn’t hurt anybody. I can’t melt it by disapproving of it. I can’t make it fall thicker by watching it. I’m allowed to enjoy it. I am.