snow melt

i'm stuck in a home office that gets too hot when it's warm outside. it's warm outside. the snow is melting - i can almost see the piles of snow getting smaller. they leave behind a trail of sand and stones from the winter roads. it's messy, but i imagine it to be like the retreat of huge sheets of ice at the end of the last ice age. except back then, the ice didn't leave behind a few pebbles or a handful of dirt - they left behind miles of hills. i have read that the land i now live on was once covered with an ice sheet that was over 1000 metres thick. this past winter wasn't quite that bad.

the metaphor of melting ice, or retreating glaciers is somehow suitable. something so solid in winter melts away to nothing in only a few days. the drops of water continue merrily on their way, always flowing downhill, along the path of least resistance. down the lawn to the road, down to the sewer system, out into the river, which flows to the lake, which flows to another lake, and finally to the ocean. unless the droplet evaporates into the air, where it might float up into the clouds and rain down once more.