Maintenance

I sat on our enclosed front porch early yesterday morning. I had done my timed writing meditation, 15 minutes of putting down what crossed my mind, and then I had to consider next what to do with the rest of that part of my day when everyone else remains asleep. With that quiet.

A large part of me sorted through all the ways to be productive: I could start the next piece of writing; I could get in my exercise while the morning was still cool, the sky still overcast and the wind blowing intermittent puffs of breath through the trees; I could flip through my journal, marking and sorting ideas.

But then, I became preoccupied with my fingernails.

They’d grown longer than I liked, as things that have been unattended tend to do. Early on, when they first seem just a little long, I tell myself that now is…