She always woke at rain. She loved the energy of it. “Thunder always does what it does,” she would say. “Lightning too, without fail.” She listened to single drops as the sound delicately plunks down each of her vertebrae.
She stays asleep though, at snow. God’s temperament changes as it chills.
Soon she will awake to wrap covers around bare legs, feel warmth against her skin, cold air in her lungs, as she will peek through the steam above her teacup. “It’s earl grey,” I will tell her. She will sip and scold me for using too much sugar.
The earth’s edges are soft now under the blanket, outside and in, and I watch the snow fall somber. In this moment, the utterly simple becomes the most profound.
I always use too much sugar in winter.
In summer too, for that matter.
