The elevator doors opened as I was about to get off.
“Oh, you’re coming?”
“Yeah. Going down?”
I stepped out, and my husband stepped into the elevator.
His face looks better today.
I had spent an hour writing over a hot Americano at the cafe near our apartment, the one that opens at eight in the morning. Before leaving, I had gotten an iced Americano to take home for my daughter.
When I walked into the kitchen and put her coffee on the table, I noticed that my husband had eaten the eggs and apple I had left for him.
The night before, when I went to bed, my husband was already in bed.
I thought he would stay up late.
But he fell asleep before I did.
When I had come home a little after six that evening, he had been asleep then too.
He’s taking a nap at this hour.
I had been almost sure he wouldn’t be able to sleep early that night. When he slept during the day, he often stayed awake late into the night.
But he didn’t.
That morning, he had looked tired and low on energy.
I had gone to my usual cafe, written for a while, and come home. A little later, I made lunch. While my husband sat at the table eating, I closed the bedroom door, lay down, and set the timer on my phone for fifteen minutes.
I felt as if I needed my usual fifteen minutes of lying down.
But it wasn’t comfortable. Thought after thought came up.
I shifted my body a few times, trying to settle. I let out a few slow breaths.
Still, my mind kept moving toward things that made me feel heavier.
This isn’t working.
So I opened my eyes.
I turned my head.
Far beyond the window was a blue sky with white clouds floating across it.
Wow.
A cloud seemed completely still.
Then it moved, slowly.
Then another.
Everything outside looked so peaceful.
After a while, I felt comfortable again.
Still lying down, I took a picture of the sky.
The window frame is white. Why does it look black in the photo?
I looked at the picture for a little while and then got up.
When I went back to the kitchen, my husband had finished eating and moved his dishes to the sink.
Later, after dropping my daughter off, I thought about going to exercise.
The day before, I had gone to the indoor golf range for the first time in almost three weeks. I had started to feel the clubhead dropping with gravity again during my iron swing, and surprisingly, the ball was going farther.
Later, though, the swing started to feel less easy. I didn’t feel like trying to fix it, so I finished with some short approach shots.
That morning, I thought exercise might help me feel better. But my neck and back felt slightly stiff.
Maybe resting would be better.
Instead, I went to a cafe I hadn’t visited in a while and ordered a hot decaf Americano.
My regular morning cafe is quiet and pleasant right after it opens, which makes it easy for me to write. In the afternoon, though, it gets crowded and noisy, and even the air feels different.
This cafe was much nicer in the afternoon. There were quite a few people talking over coffee after lunch, but I found a seat at the far end by the window, opened my laptop, and started writing. I stayed for about an hour.
Later, I met my daughter again and we had a late lunch at the Japanese ramen place we had enjoyed before.
This time, the broth was lukewarm. It wasn’t nearly as good as I remembered.
My daughter left, and I thought about going home.
I Tried Another Cafe
But I didn’t really want to. So I tried a new cafe near the restaurant.
As soon as I walked in, I noticed the atmosphere.
Oh, everyone here is quietly doing their own thing.
I took a seat at a wide table by the window and opened my laptop again.
A young man at the next table had his laptop raised on a stand and seemed absorbed in his work.
Farther down by the window, a young man and woman sat side by side studying. After a while, the man put his head down on the table and fell asleep.
I wrote for a while, watched cars passing outside, looked at the sky in the distance, and wrote some more.
Then I got up to go to the bathroom.
One table caught my eye.
They don’t look like a mother and son. What are they doing?
An older woman was sitting very comfortably with one leg tucked up, talking with a male student.
On my way back from the bathroom, I passed their table and glanced over.
It looked like a private math lesson.
The woman leaned far forward to watch him solve a problem, then sat back and talked.
From my seat, I could hear her voice because she spoke fairly loudly. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but they didn’t seem to be doing math every second. They seemed to chat about other things too. The whole lesson looked relaxed.
Oh. She’s still tutoring students at her age.
And she looks so comfortable doing it.
After studying in the UK, I had run a small English academy and taught students myself.
Maybe that was why I kept noticing her. She just looked comfortable.
As I walked out of the cafe, I thought,
Oh, I’m not tired.
I had spent plenty of time in cafes before, working on things I needed to do. But afterward, I was often tired.
Oh, I hadn’t been pushing myself to finish anything.
I had just been spending my time the way I wanted to.
I drove home feeling good.
When I opened the bedroom door to change my clothes, my husband was asleep. I quietly closed the door again.
There was a delivery box by the front door. It was a gift sent to my husband.
I opened it.
Abalone.
“Do you want to just eat fresh abalone with cho-gochujang?”
She liked the idea.
I picked one up.
“Oh, it’s still alive.”
It moved in my hand.
I separated it from the shell, cleaned it, sliced it, and gave some to my daughter.
She ate it right away.
I tried a piece too.
My son would probably like these better cooked in butter.
In the past, I probably would have eaten a few and frozen the rest to make abalone porridge later.
But I didn’t feel like putting any more into the freezer. I already had some from another gift a few months earlier.
I feel like doing this now. I might as well do all of them.
So I cleaned every one.
I sliced one for my husband to eat raw and cooked the rest in butter.
My daughter tried the buttered abalone too.
“Good.”
I put a plate of sliced raw abalone and another plate of buttered abalone on the table for my husband.
My son came into the kitchen and stood by the stove, tasting pieces straight from the pan.
I put some on a plate for myself.
“You can just take the pan.”
He happily carried it away.
While I lightly cleaned up the kitchen, warm water was running into the bathtub. I added a little magnesium and salt.
A little later, my son came out of his room carrying his empty dishes. We talked in the kitchen for a little while.
Then I told him I was going to have some time to myself and went into the bedroom.
The wind outside felt chilly, so I closed the bathroom window and lowered myself into the warm water.
When I came out, I looked in the mirror.
Oh. My face looks pretty good.
It looked different from the tired face I had seen in the mirror after golf practice the day before.
I looked at the clock.
Oh.
It’s only eight.
