The windowsill is about a handspan wide. A few red lilies lie on it, a glass bowl holds cherries almost to overflowing, and in the teacup on its water-colored saucer the black tea catches the light from outside and pools a dark red. Beyond the open window, parked cars and the roof of a playground blur together, and the light, tilted late in the afternoon, breaks briefly along every edge of glass.
What holds the eye longest in the photograph is the arrangement rather than the flowers. The angle of the saucer, the place where the bowl was set down, even the single cherry that rolled loose, all passed through someone's hands. Tidiness of this order does not come from having time to spare. It is possible because a few minutes were forced out of the day.
When we talk about care and labor, we usually look at the schedule outside. But the place that actually keeps a person going is often about the size of this windowsill. At what point in the day can you set the cup down and sit, and whether that handspan exists changes the face you wear the next day.
Outside the window there are still the cars and the playground. It is a view where the place you have to leave for and the place you have to pick someone up from hang together. The teacup beside it is closer to a pause taken in order to go out again than to an escape.
The light comes in at a slant from the upper left of the window, off the front. Because of that angle the shadow of the teacup drags past the saucer and far into the windowsill, and the glass of the cherry bowl has left a pattern on the surface like a red stain. If the sun drops a little further, this handspan sinks into shade. It means the time the tidiness holds also has an end set from outside.
Look at the photograph again. The cherries are untouched, and more than half the tea remains. You begin to wonder how many minutes this scene lasted, and whether you had those minutes today.
