Q

The kind of day that smells like burnt toast, crisp to its core. Even the frenzied, strangled cries of our city rooster are quelled.

One doesn’t have to look out to know the air has taken on a gauzy quality, vibrating with an excess of energy.

I feel it, already, on my cheek. The one facing a window in the spot I have taken to meditate. A welcome warmth all too quickly (in seconds) deepens into a sear, and even with eyes closed, pricks of sunlight draw patterns behind my lids.

How far this light has travelled. How dwarfed I am by the distance and by the immensity of conceivable space. From the sun to here, and beyond –

I am not supposed to think about that though, not yet. Now I’m supposed to think about ‘grounding’ my infinitesimally small body and its relation to this infinitesimally small space of my home I spend most of my days.

The heat makes this difficult, makes me impatient, an all too familiar restlessness from being cooked soles up. Ants on a frying pan, 烧焦、焦急、焦虑。

And this restless meditation is punctuated by the creaking of things expanding. Rusty old bones popping out of their joints, protesting the heat, but still standing. How buildings are built.