A room with a low sloping ceiling, and outside the window a cloudy sky and a bluish ridge hang. The curtain is drawn halfway and droops limply, and beyond the glass a pale pink clinging to a bare branch sways. The white blanket on the bed lies rumpled just as someone left it, and the light spreads into the room without glare.
At a scene like this the shoulders drop on their own. The toes are sunk in a blanket warmed through the night, and the breath rises and falls shallowly, then runs a beat longer. The eyes stay unfocused somewhere around the window frame.
There are mornings when only the mind runs outside before the body sits up. As if the things to be done today had risen earlier than the blanket and were standing at the door.
At times like that, try stretching your arms above your head while still lying down. Push the toes the other way, breathe in only as much as the ribs open, and let the tension go while breathing out long. Once is enough, and no one will say anything if it is twice.
The same stretch enters an evening spent taking in dry laundry and folding it. There is a moment when you stop lining up the corners of a towel and raise your arms, and then you look at how much force is in your fingers. Whether the thumb and index finger are still gripping something, or lying open and slack. The half-folded clothes will not come undone if you leave them as they are.
The blanket stays there even unfolded, and the mountain hangs in the window, still overcast.
