dear internet,

every year i believe a little less in the fiction of the new year. it seems a waste to spend the last days of december hurtling towards anticlimax when instead i could walk to the lake. the past few days have been too cold for snow, perfectly sunny and chilly, and everybody looks a little manic. too many days of grey skies and performing seasonal gladness, but now we can be outdoors where the kids skim rocks across the frozen surface of the lake and frost dusts the grass and a french bulldog puppy runs to stand directly between my feet, seeking the warmth of my coat. my friend sent me a photo her husband took last week of a snowflake that landed on my hat. it already looked perfect to me—impossibly small and entire—but zoomed in you can see all its spiky complexity, even though it was just a little fleck on my beanie smaller than my littlest fingernail, even though in moments it was nothing at all.

love,
t