Two panels of orange curtain are parted to either side, and between them a small window burns white. The cloth is thin and lets the light through, and the light that comes through is dyed scarlet again and spreads across the wall and the wooden ceiling. The window frame is deep green, and the floor below is yellow like freshly cut pine. It is the light of an early hour.
When you step into a room like this, your eyes are pulled toward the white face of the window, and your focus widens as if coming loose. Your breath grows a little longer, and the shoulders that had ridden up toward your ears overnight quietly come down. Only then do you feel your bare feet on the wood floor that has warmed.
One common feeling in the morning is impatience. That sense of the list of things to do running out ahead of the body the moment you open your eyes. The light halts that running for a moment.
You can also pull the curtain aside with your hand and open the window a little. How about breathing the incoming air in and out to a count of three. While you are counting, you do not have to do anything else.
The same counting carries on inside an elevator. While the floor numbers change one by one, rest your back lightly against the wall, and while you count three breaths in and out, it is enough to check how far your shoulders sit from your ears. The two sides may be at different heights. There is also a way of leaving it unfixed, noticing it as it is and waiting for the doors to open.
In the time the cloth swells once and settles, the room has tilted a little toward day.
