It was years ago now when scientists proved that fingerprints and snowflakes are, in fact, all identical. They haven't broken the news to us yet, however, because they know how important our metaphors can be to us. For my part, I believe in the stark, painful truth. I believe that admitting that you don't know, that you can't know, is more valuable than conjecture. Forensics is, it seems, guilty of false convictions, dusting the premises with faulty premises, as it were. Around here we only get a dusting of snow time to time, but it's the same as yours. There are dozens of words for it in certain Inuit and Eskimo languages, but the flakes are all the same.
I cannot lie to you. None of that was true.
Outside my borrowed window, here at my regular table at the coffee shop, a woman walks a hulking dog that looks like a husky Malamute. It must feel at home here in the grey, cold morning, though there is no snow in the ground. Nevertheless, the wind blows strong and some part of me knows that past the horizon, off through the moist, foggy mists, one can almost see the wild Russian Steppes. The woman looks Texan enough, certainly not Mahlemuit. She's outside because of the dog and because of her cigarette, which she lips frantically in the gusty wind. In the flurry of atmosphere, I mistake her, briefly, for a goddess of old. But the illusion passes, blown far away and swirling high up into the air. She's just a smoker, a dog walker, a woman bracing in the wind down outside the window. Still, the likeness is striking, and the memory of creation stirs deep down in my chest. Was she there, singing the world into shape? Have I seen that wolf before? Don't I know that face?
Hello, friends. How are you today?
Later. Love.
