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Today is a big day for M., whose 33-year marriage will end before noon. It's a big day for S., who is meeting with her oncologist to find out if the tumor’s malignant. For me, it's an ordinary day in winter— oatmeal, phone calls, a joke at the bank about growing older. In my twenties, all those days at the office seemed unmercifully the same. In the evenings, I’d go for a run, hoping to outdistance my own boredom. Now that same sameness descends upon the afternoon like bliss, or perhaps snow—quiet, white— while what I thought was coming arrives.