More snow than anyone remembers. After Christmas, 1947, there was a snowfall of 25 inches but you’d have to be ancient to remember that. I take a picture, not because I’m good at it, but because everyone these days keeps a camera handy, so why not? Branches swathed in white make for a chiaroscuro effect, colorful without colors. Henry barks at snowdrifts he’s not used to. Juncos and titmice peck at the feeder, evidently frantic, but that may be my projection.

The foregoing paragraph is timestamped in ways one might not expect. Where did that 1947 factoid come from (I’m no meteorologist). Snapping and dispatching you the photo means the scene can’t be older than a decade, maybe less. Henry hasn’t turned three (in human years). Later I might sprinkle in some snow quotes for zest. Whence cometh they? Not from my colander memory, for sure – from Alistair, a.k.a., AI.

We can’t help inhabiting our moment. We may coo a scene is timeless but that’s nonsense. Everything is evolving, altering its nature, careening toward dust. I will never paint this scene again, for I will no longer be I or this scene the same. My awareness tomorrow cannot be today’s. Three thousand years ago, Heraclitus noted, “You can’t step into the same stream twice.” Folks have been stepping across that stream ever since, never the same.

These truths are inarguable, yet how often denied. God is eternal – and verities – and my identity! Are you telling me I don’t know who I am or what’s up? I know chalk from cheese, you bet I do.

We fear evanescence for it corrodes the ground rules of consciousness. If nothing’s fixed, how can we set our course? “Since proofs need premises,” wrote Bertrand Russell with his tidy logic, “it is impossible to prove anything unless some things are accepted without proof.” I know what I know, dammit, for if not, where am I – or who – or why? Without a star in the sky, how will those poor kings find their way to Bethlehem? They’ll just keep wandering, lost.

This is why folks insist on formulaic and changeless deities, so they can track themselves in relation. No one likes feeling lost. The problem with any absolute assertion is it’s a lie – or, to be polite, a fiction – which scrutiny must unravel. Posit the God of Genesis, smug about his creation, and soon enough you’re scratching your head why He made such a botch of Man.

I used to insist on a few foundational truths – God, America, Truth – immutable, unarguable. No longer. I’ve joined the camp of Pyrrho of Elis, who kept Alexander company on his conquests. Since it’s impossible to know anything with certainty, Pyrrho said, we must suspend judgment. Montaigne picked up this theme with his motto, “Que sais-je?” My version is, “Who knows for sure has stopped thinking.”

So, yes, I’m lost. But lostness has its advantages. It makes Being suspenseful, every day new. It exempts me from anyone’s verdict but my own, which never stays still. It extends to all the benefit of the doubt, for doubt is all there is. It will keep me busy till lights out revising, that is, seeing again, to assess my whereabouts.

Snow, observed Emily Dickinson, who viewed her moment with a freshness that assaults our sight,

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published sifts from leaden sieves —It powders all the wood.It fills with alabaster woolThe wrinkles of the road —

It makes an even faceOf mountain, and of plain —Unbroken forehead from the EastUnto the East again —

It reaches to the fence —It wraps it rail by railTill it is lost in fleeces —It flings a crystal veil

On stump, and stack — and stem —The Summer’s empty room —Acres of seams where harvests were,Recordless, but for them —

It ruffles wrists of postsAs ankles of a Queen —Then stills its artisans — like Ghosts —Denying they have been —

Here, more potent than Pyrrho’s argument, is the giddy glory of a world made ever new.