How the days bump into each other in these dark months. I experience a touch of concern each morning when I try to grasp the day of the week, the day’s plans. Is this normal?

The asphalt safe when it glitters under the street lamps. And unpredictable when it is as black and matte as spilled ink. I strap the metal coils to my running shoes and try to trust their grip. I silently beg the dog not to pull as we head out of the driveway, where the plough has shoved fresh snow over frozen rain.

The grass is ice-stiffened from last week’s rain. And covered with snow. Walking on it, I sink – deliciously – with each step. A cellofane-covered mattress. Weirdly, sensually satisfying.

Again then: this touch of concern. Am I normal?

I laugh at the hare’s tracks that look like adolescent-obscene graffiti. And the dog buries his snout under them, winding himself up like one of those flipping toy puppies on display at a toy store in a mall oh-way-back-when, somewhere.

Yap. Yap. Yap.

How it all rises and falls in consciousness to take us by surprise: the weaving of time-traveling moments that make up our present.