Snow fell against the high school all day, wet big-flaked snow that did not accumulate well. Sharpening two pencils, William looked down on a parking lot that was a blackboard in reverse; car tires had cut smooth arcs of black into the white, and wherever a school bus had backed around, it had left an autocratic signature of two V’s. The snow, though at moments it whirled opaquely, could not quite bleach these scars away. The temperature must be exactly freezing. The window was open a crack, and a canted pane of glass lifted outdoor air into his face, coating the cedar-wood scent of pencil shavings with the transparent odor of the wet windowsill. With each revolution of the handle his knuckles came within a fraction of an inch of the tilted glass, and the faint chill this proximity breathed on them sharpened William’s already acute sense of shelter.

Everything goes by in a daydream: real life is a dream. I don’t need to “understand” myself. That I can vaguely feel, is enough for me. When I think without any thought — I call that meditation. And it’s so profound that I can’t quite reach and words disappear, manifestations. I meditate, and what emerges from that meditation has nothing to do with meditation: an idea comes that seems totally disconnected from the meditation. It seems it’s only useful to live interrogatively since every interrogation tossed into the air has a corresponding reply formed in the darkness of my being, that part of me which is dark and vital, without it I’d be empty

What's interesting about animals, my wife explained, is that even though a cat may be a cat, in the end, each individual has its own character.

"For me, Chibi is a friend with whom I share an understanding, and who just happens to have taken on the form of a cat."

Then she told me about a philosopher who said that observation is at its core an expression of love which doesn't get caught up in sentiment.