The Particular Stillness

February twenty-seventh. There is a thing I do with my phone when I am thinking about something I am not ready to think about out loud. I hold it face-down, or I open it and look at one image for longer than makes sense, and I don't scroll. I don't do anything. I just look. I've done it with apartment listings I wasn't going to sign. I've done it with text messages I wasn't going to send. Tonight I was doing it with a photograph I took of a flyer on the community center corkboard in January, the travel photography workshop, two towns over, the one I haven't mentioned here yet except sideways.

Simone noticed. She came back from returning a stack of menus to the host stand, poured herself the end of the coffee, and sat down across from me. She didn't say anything for a minute. Then she said, 'You get very still when you're about to do something.' I told her I wasn't doing anything. She said, 'I know. That's what I mean.'

the look of someone mid-considering something she hasn't named yet

I didn't show her the photo. I'm not sure why. It's not that it's a secret, a flyer on a public corkboard is approximately the least secret object in the world. But there's a version of saying something out loud that makes it real in the wrong direction, the direction where you feel obligated rather than interested, and I didn't want to go there yet. The itch is still mine right now. I want to keep it that way for a little longer.

mid-pull, mid-thought, mid-something

She finished her coffee and went back out to close her tables and I sat there for another few minutes. The space heater made that specific ticking sound it makes when the room is almost warm enough. I pulled my cardigan tighter and thought: March is almost here. The workshop is in March. I haven't done anything about it. But I also haven't thrown the photo away.