A wet dirt path runs straight into the woods. The fir trees on either side hold a deep green down to their lowest branches, and the far end of the path sinks into white fog until its shape blurs. Light leaking through the branches spreads through the fog, and it is early morning, the whole forest swelling into a pale milky white.
Faced with a scene like this, the eyes lose a place to focus. Try to look into the distance and there is only a hazy white, so the gaze eventually drops to your feet. Then the shoulders come down a little, and the smell of wet earth and conifers mixes into the breath you draw in.
Walking a road whose end you cannot see, the mind tends to grow impatient. Trying to work out how far you still have to go, you miss the feel of the soil you are stepping on right now.
If there is even one tree visible outside your window, it is fine to step out for a moment and walk beneath it for ten minutes or so. If that is not possible, how about standing where you are and slowly counting just ten steps. Resting your attention on the sensation that starts at the heel is enough.
The same counting carries over at a traffic light. In the thirty seconds or so of waiting for green, instead of checking the far side of the crossing again and again, you find yourself quietly feeling out where your two shoulders are sitting. Whether they are up near your ears, or whether they have slid down the way they did on the morning forest path. The light changes in the time it takes just to notice.
The fog does not erase the path. It only asks you to come a little closer.
