It happens so seldom in central Texas that a frost is worth noting. As a child in Minnesota, frosty nights were an everyday occurrence from September to May, but in the central Texas usually you can count them on one hand. A frosty night is a sign that time is passing, that the seasons are moving on, that another year is passing. Alone with one’s existential thoughts revolving around the nature of human purpose, a frosty night dashes reason and shreds any hope that one actually controls their own destiny. One is assailed by nostalgia and wistfulness for other times and other people when things seemed simpler. All of that is, of course, an illusion that keeps one from living more fully in the here and the now. One just tends to push all of the bad things into the back of the memory closet and leave them there. Frosty nights were made for warm jackets, maybe a hat, gloves. The problem being, of course, that more than eight months have gone by since I needed any of those things, and now I have no idea where they might be. One gets used to the heat, at least a little bit, and when it’s gone we complain bitterly. I don’t mind the cold, and I also find the cold a nice change from the monotony of the daily heat which is so common here during the year’s middle months. It is November, however, and if there is frost on the grass in the morning, I will be surprised. The heat seems like it will always be with me. On a frosty night you can see a million stars if you dare venture out, your breath condensing in the cold air as if it were so much strange smoke. The clouds are gone for a moment, and the heat of the day is drifting off into space. The stars, in their frosty heights, foreshadow the million tiny glittering ice crystals, ephemera, that will cover the lawn in the morning, shining coldly and brightly as we all go off to work, unable to stop and admire Nature’s handiwork. Grandes estrellas de escarcha vienen con el pez de sombra que abre el camino del alba.–Lorca