Lunch had been satisfying.
I made spicy beef and vegetable soup
and cooked multigrain rice
in advance for my husband to eat later that evening.
While boiling eggs for him in the morning,
I added two more.
I roughly mashed the eggs,
sprinkled a little salt over them,
then added large slices of the remaining half of an apple
and mixed everything with organic mayonnaise.
I took out the spicy cucumber salad
I had made the day before,
and the leftover roasted seaweed
from the freezer.
A full lunch.
A slow lunch.
After eating,
my daughter and I headed out
to get Americano coffee
and finish editing
the post I planned to publish that tonight.
While waiting for the elevator,
I suddenly noticed something.
My tempo
felt slightly faster.
I felt a little out of breath.
A little tired.
Maybe I had eaten a little more than usual.
Outside the Entrance
As we stepped outside,
a cool breeze moved through the air.
“Wow, the weather feels nice.”
My daughter smiled.
I smiled too.
“The wind feels really cool today.”
The outdoor parking lot
was filled with heat from the sun.
And then—
I looked up.
The sky.
The clouds.
“Ah… the clouds are beautiful.
I should take a picture.”
I stopped walking,
pulled out my phone,
and took a photo
with the apartment building slightly entering the frame.
Then my daughter and I looked at the photo together.
“Oh, the sun is in it.”
I laughed,
turned my body,
and took a few more photos
of the sky and clouds.
We looked at them together.
“The clouds almost look like a map, don’t they?”
My daughter laughed too.
A Small Shift
And then I noticed something.
I felt better.
Lighter.
Without trying to fix my mood.
Without resting.
Without doing anything special.
Just by stopping for a moment
and looking up.
Sometimes,
a small shift in attention
changes the rhythm inside your body.
We got into the car.
The window felt slightly warm
from the sunlight.
I rolled it all the way down,
turned on the air conditioner,
and slowly began driving.
Somewhere along the way,
my mood
had already changed.
Quietly.
Naturally.
Without effort.
—
Sometimes,
the smallest shift
changes everything inside us.
