Everyday life, one chapter at a time.

The pencil line beside the paragraph is mine, but I cannot remember making it. I read the sentence again, then the chapter around it. A familiar book keeps a record of the reader who once thought this was the important part.

By the second morning we had stopped consulting the map. The same harbour path was different enough: a tide line higher on the steps, one blue chair outside a closed café, a dog waiting for someone we had not seen.

There are three cups on the desk and only one is warm. I move the others to the kitchen, open the window and begin with the note I nearly threw away yesterday. Some mornings a useful routine is simply making enough room to notice.