Why Does the Last Always Seem the Best?

  Tonight, the rain had turned to snow very quickly, and I could feel the flakes covering my jacket and face as I got back home. It was certainly a pleasant kind of snow, in the sense that I could feel it almost like feathers covering the body. I even begin to wonder as I write this, how such a delicate thing like this kind of snow could even exist. Looked at under a microscope, snow looks like the bits of paper that make up a kaleidoscope. The symmetry is often striking even when seen from a distance, and I marvel at how nature could even create such things as the crystalline shapes of snowflakes. Of course, however, the tragic thing about the snowflake is that it is gone as soon as it hits the ground. Yet nature seems to keep creating regardless, never feeling sad for the loss of one or two snowflakes.
     I don't think this snowfall will last for very long, even though the weather reports indicate to the contrary.  After all, it's getting close to spring, and the temperatures are already alternating between the somewhat cool and warmer temperatures. So why did tonight's weather feel pleasant? I think the reason is that I am no longer feeling the weight of winter ahead of me, so there is a sense that I can better appreciate things as they are now. In addition, I am not bracing myself for what is supposed to happen next. Now that I had a chance to bear the cold weather in the past few months, a little bit of snow doesn't feel so bad after all. For this  reason, there was a kind of ironic enjoyment of the weather tonight as I was travelling home.
    How might all this talk about weather relate to deeper concepts? In a sense, one could live as though everyday were the 'last snowfall', and thus feel that it is not so bad. But most of the time, the mind is burdened with thoughts of the future, and projections of what is expected to happen. As soon as a person witnesses the first snowfall, she or he begins to imagine what winter will look like in the future. This thought of all the suffering that winter represents is really a kind of attachment to what never really happens. If I take things as they really are from day to day, is it not the same as seeing that this is the last snowfall? After all, this moment is impermanent, and it will not last. The problems that occur today are simply the coming together of very specific conditions which are bound to ebb and flow over time. In this sense, one can simply enjoy the experience and treat it just like the snowflake, which is beautiful one moment and gone the next.