The way light hits the kitchen table at 7am
There's a twenty-minute window where the morning sun comes through the east window at exactly the right angle, and I've started waking up early enough to see it.
On keeping a list of things that almost happened
I started writing down the things that nearly occurred but didn't—the job I didn't take, the conversation I almost had, the trip I cancelled.
The bookstore owner who remembers everyone
There's a secondhand bookshop two blocks from my apartment, and the owner has this uncanny ability to recall what everyone was reading the last time they visited.
Learning to cook without a recipe
I spent most of my cooking life following instructions exactly, measuring everything, terrified of deviation. Then I ran out of flour and had to improvise.
What I noticed walking the same route for a year
For twelve months I walked the exact same path to the train station every morning, and I started documenting the small changes I noticed along the way.
On having fewer opinions
I used to have strong feelings about everything—politics, art, the right way to load a dishwasher. Now I'm trying to have fewer opinions and more curiosity.