Monday morning

I was concerned that my five year old and I were late for school this cold, grey morning Monday. She kept stopping to pick up pieces of ice and half-melted snow. I kept saying come on, come on -- and with diminishing patience.

I turned and saw her running towards me with two large snowballs that she intended to throw at me.  There was joy and light in her eyes, and I felt it totally. That moment - just a second or two - was as beautiful as a moment can be. It was almost enough to give credit to something Richard Jefferies wrote in The Story of My Heart (and quoted in a forthcoming book by Philip Hoare):

Time has never existed, and never will; it is a purely artificial arrangement. It is eternity now, it always was eternity, and it always will be.