As the blood spilled, I walked into the cold, intensely aware of every bird sheltered in every hollow, of each winter leaf and berry, of the impermanence of the wind, of the sleep of trees, of the lingering ice and the insubstantiality of warm breath, in shock by my injury and yet attuned perfectly to everything around me. I required three stitches for my jagged cut of my index finger from a cheese knife and was lucky not to have hit either muscle or nerve.