Slate Grey

3:24 in the afternoon

I hadn't expected the story of the car window's edge to have a sequel.

The rainy season seems almost over, and moss has sprouted in the crack of the car window—look closely and it's a little troop of furry clusters.

Last year's glittering ice crystals have not yet dimmed, and already another year has slipped by.

Today, rare for me, I didn't drive out. I walked slowly along the river when a sudden chill caught me off guard; only when I checked my phone did I discover it had already dropped to zero.

Vancouver still hasn't seen snow. We are always hoping for snow, hoping that something wonderful and unforeseen might suddenly fall into our lives, the way a child hopes for candy and gifts to sprout inside a Christmas stocking.

What we hope for does not happen, and what we fear does not happen either—only what has already happened happens. Like the new fragrance I bought smelling so good, like the piano music playing in the tea house sounding so lovely, like the braised pork rice at noon tasting so fine, like the big white dog outside the floor-to-ceiling window running along, tugging a little girl behind it, like some matter I'd agonized over for so long finally being let go.

Perhaps we ought to allow things to happen without needing them to serve either your interests or mine; allow the concrete to triumph over the abstract. A person cannot arrive at understanding except through the concrete experience of living.

Perhaps the world moves as my heart moves. Last year I said the sky was slate grey, I said the shards of ice would keep glittering until the sun rose.

Now the moss before my eyes reflects no light, and so the whole expanse of slate-grey sky has been absorbed into a faint, grassy hue.

That thread of slate grey has crept, just so, along that same line, filling every corner of life, carrying with it a certain dampness, though no droplet can be seen.

Light without glare, still waters running deep.

Like water vanishing into water.