sitting still

it's been incredibly cold today. i had my afternoon coffee and instead of reading or writing or working on anything, i stared out the window for an hour or so and watched the snow fall. the last few times i've gone out i made it a point to just sit and relax. it seems a majority of people, myself included, show up at a coffee house with laptops, books, iphones, ipods, or pen and paper with the intention of getting some work done. i thought it would be nice to just have coffee and stretch out on a chair.

i know cigarettes are unfashionable these days, but the good comment i can make is that you never see anyone take a smoke break and carry out their laptop or bring out a textbook. iphones maybe. cellphones usually. but my point is that nobody goes out to have a cigarette with the intention of getting work done. why is it that i go out for coffee and tea and feel like i have to be occupied with work? the other good point about cigarettes is that people are usually generous and strangers will bum you a smoke or a light but no stranger will share their latte with you.

when i was a student at UH, i had the occasional habit to smoke a cigarette with my classmate to take a break from studying electromagnetic fields or whatever class we had at the time. yes, cigarettes are bad for you, but three or four minutes of smoking followed by ten minutes of fresh air and sunshine can't be all that bad, especially if you're studying in an asbestos-ridden old engineering building. before i started joining him, my break was to stand up, stretch, and read something else. not much of a break for the eyes. at my last job, our breakroom was full of magazines and newspapers that i would read. why do we always have to stuff something into our heads? towards the end of my contract, i started going out to the porch and just staring at the mountain. just for five or ten minutes. i never saw anyone else out there except people who came out to have a cigarette.

on my last day, i sat out there with my colleague for an hour. when we went out, he was afraid we were going to be locked out. he'd been there six months and never bothered to go out that door.