I’m sipping my coffee, looking over some completed work, and taking this firm break to refresh my thinking. The window shade is open, and I can see the wintry gray sky above the neighbor’s house, beyond the fence, and the naked branches of the pear tree. Human and filled with soft turmoil, hints of changes coming… or that could be, if I choose them. I sit quietly with my thoughts, not attached to an outcome, non-judgmentally, just… thoughts, and coffee, and a gray winter sky.

I listen to a jazzy rainy day station in the background; it suits the work, today.

I find myself reflexively seeking to return to work. My hands and eyes drift to more obviously purposeful things… but this break has a timer, and it is not yet time to return to work. 🙂 It may be time to begin again… for other values of beginning. There are bigger questions that need time to unfold comfortably, and, having been well-considered with patient thoroughness and calm, perhaps an action. Thoughts and coffee, first. 🙂

…It’s not as if I really know where my path leads, anyway, is it…?

I smile at my break timer. There are enough measured minutes remaining for another cup of coffee… and that’s enough. 🙂