If I were looking for something to write about, I might choose shards of milk. I like the sound of it.

Just now, because I was feeling hungry and hadn’t eaten anything yet except coffee, I got out the granola and poured out a little into a bowl.

I reached in the fridge for the milk.

Chaz and Kristina buy it at Costco, in gallon jugs, two at a time.

I used to buy it by the half gallon because they’re lighter and easier to pour.

Two gallons at a time leaves one too long in the fridge and passes the expiration date. So they use one, freeze the other. They’ve found that you can freeze milk once and thaw it out without harmful effects. It just becomes itself again.

Twice is too much, freeze thaw freeze thaw. That second exposure to the deleterious world yields untrustworthy results.

So I took my little bowl of granola and brought the formerly frozen gallon jug out of the fridge. It was still thawing from overnight. I shook it and it rattled. I poured some into my bowl. Liquid, mixed with shards of milk. Given time, they would re-integrate and milk would be as it was.

I thought, as I always do, that there are connections and parallels, one thought leads to another.

Parts of the present are stored away, frozen in time, ready to be thawed out later as needed and join the flow of the new present. Parts of the frozen present can cut and jab like shards as the partial past re-integrates into its future.

I thought perhaps I could segment my own life, freeze part by writing it down, then surviving into the future I would be read and re-enter the world, continuing to do what I’ve always wanted, make things better by adding my bit to the pot, spice to the stew.

But instead, I chose the better path, just ate my granola, the milk now unfrozen and doing its job.

You can think too much, and I try not to.