My wee patch of the world drips. Yesterday's snowstorm dribbles off rooftops and branches and blades of grass, down drains and along gutters, an ongoing, low-key, and mellifluous concert beneath the burr of traffic. I bought a nectarine, a tub of hummous, and a loaf of sourdough bread. All winter I had been forgetting to eat lunch, arriving at dinner with a headache and a ferocious appetite, a tempest of restive maw and riotous feeling.

I felt calm after lunch. For weeks I had been waiting for our third winter, stomping around town in the same bomber jacket, stained black jeans, ratty jumper and heavy boots, eating nothing most of the day, shivering in the gales that swooped into the house through the windows the mother-in-law had opened no matter the temperature, listening for other people's footsteps in case I needed to retreat.

Now it seemed, although more snow is forecast, I could feel a little ease. I could imagine the future: subtle, effervescent, and tender, as if time could sit in my palm, a tight bud ready to burst free and evergreen, full of things that have never been.

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