Fog lay low over a field where cut corn stalks had fallen brown. Beyond it a few trees that had shed all their leaves stood as gray-blue silhouettes, and the tips of their branches blurred before they reached the sky. The sky was a white that had lost nearly all its color, and the air was damp enough that it would feel cool against the back of your hand.
Looking at a scene like this, the eyes wander for a moment, unsure where to settle. After a few rounds of reaching for something sharp and losing it, the tension in the eyelids quietly drains away. That is when the shoulders drop half a hand's width, and the breath you draw in reaches all the way below the belly.
Only then do you notice you have been holding onto something sharply all day. There was a part of you that could not bear the blur and kept straining the eyes.
Go to the window and look at the farthest roof or tree branch for about thirty seconds. What if you did not try to make out what it is, and simply let the outline smudge? When the eyes let go, there are times you feel the jaw and neck loosen along with them.
A similar gap opens while you wait for the kettle to boil. Once the steam starts to rise, there is a way of letting your gaze drift out the kitchen window and resting it on a wall sunk in fog or the blurred line of a power cable. In the meantime, check on the state of the back of your neck. Whether it is stiff or soft, whether the base of the skull is tight, it is enough just to check.
The fog over the field thins before long, and the trees keep standing through it.
