I took today off work. Nothing on the other end of it. No appointment, no trip, no reason I could have written down if somebody asked me for one.
Up at eight. At Summer Moon by nine. It’s my favorite coffee shop— the drip is good enough that you don’t do anything to it.
I sat for an hour. Phone and iPad on the table. Put music on, did my Bible study, got the picture posted. That was the entire agenda and it was done in twenty minutes.
The other forty I just sat there.
I didn’t notice I was relaxed. I noticed what I wasn’t doing.
On a normal morning I check my phone the way you check a mirror walking past one — not for anything in particular, just to see. Notifications. Something might have come in. Something might need me in the next four minutes. It doesn’t register as stress while it’s happening. It’s the shape of the day, and you don’t feel the shape of a day any more than you feel your own posture.
This morning the phone sat face up on the table and I left it there.
I did open email twice. Both times there was nothing. Nothing was the right answer, and I put it back down.
What I missed wasn’t rest exactly. I sleep fine. It was the stillness — music in a room where nobody knows me, and no requirement to think hard about any of it.
It’s been a few months. I don’t need it often. Every so often is plenty, which is probably why it takes me this long to remember it’s available.
My wife knew where I was. Nobody else did.
David Willis 