Four small rituals for the in-between hours
The unglamorous parts of a slow day: the kettle moment, the breath at the threshold, the lying-down before deciding.
Ten past three on a Sunday afternoon, the light already low and gold the way it gets in June, and the house has gone quiet in that particular way it does between lunch and whatever the evening turns out to be. Charlie has found the last warm patch on the floorboards and folded himself into it. I am standing in the kitchen, not quite sure what to do with myself.
The in-between hours
Nobody writes about these hours because there is nothing to say about them. They are the unassigned part of the day, after the plans and before the evening, and most of us hand them straight to the phone. I think they are where a slow day is actually decided, so this letter is four small rituals for exactly these hours. None of them will photograph well. That is the point of them.
The four rituals
The first is the kettle moment. Put the kettle on and stay with it. Hands on the bench, feet where they are, no phone, until the water has boiled and the tea is made. Three minutes or so, and the cheapest stillness you will find all day.
The second is the breath at the threshold. One breath at the front door, every time, coming or going. Hand on the handle, one slow breath out, then through. A doorway is already a pause. You are only agreeing to notice it.
The third is the lying-down before deciding, and it belongs to Charlie. Before he commits to anything, he lies down. A new dog at the gate, a noise he cannot place, the sea on a rough day: down he goes, chin on paws, and looks at it from there. He has never once made a decision at full height that I can remember. So when there is something I keep circling and cannot settle, I have learned to do the same. Floor or bed, flat on my back, five minutes, the question left alone in the next room. No deciding standing up at the bench with a phone in one hand. Most things look different from the floor, and the ones that still look the same were probably decided already.
The fourth is the last look at the sky. Before you lock up at night, step outside, or lean out the door if it is cold, and look up until you can say one true thing about what is up there: cloud coming in from the south, or stars, or nothing much. Charlie does his slow round of the yard at the same time, one final read of the day, and I have started doing mine.
Last night it was cloud, the heavy kind that means rain by morning. Charlie sneezed at it, twice, with feeling, and we went in.