Reminiscence
When I was much younger, I'd take my textbooks and lay them on the plastic-wood desk surface, and I'd craftily enclose the rhombus of sunlight on my table in an indomitable fence of Math, Geography, Geography and Math, in that order. And I'd stare, fascinated, at the way that little rhombus would always escape confinement and keep shifting implacably; and, ever persistent, I'd keep moving my little textbook enclosure until the books fell off the table, and the rhombus of sunlight collapsed into a long golden ribbon, yawning across the classroom floor.
I don't do that anymore. Because such childlike abandon is supposedly indecorous, because you shouldn't waste precious time, because Rachel, what a silly and naive thing to do, because, because, because. No. It's because I don't do Math and Geography anymore, and because ENGLAND HAS THE MOST MISERABLE WEATHER EVER!!!!, and there's no such thing as a full rhombus of golden sunlight, only bite-sized jaundiced glimmers.
...except today, because today was so, so splendidly cosmetic, and the lawn outside was drenched in winter gold.