I sit here in this black and gray swivel chair. The heater is on, with a noise my stomach makes when I feel hungry, but is also making a soothing blowing sound, like a giant trying to cool a bowl of soup – one that is delivered to his table still boiling. The air is slowly warming around me, giving me comfort.

I sit here and sip my chai tea, this morning sweet, yet with a bite of spice as the aftertaste leaves my tongue. I’m having tea after my fruit-filled breakfast. I had oatmeal with raspberries and blueberries that were on sale last night at the grocery store. I also have banana and walnut in my oatmeal. It is sweet, tart, crunchy, and satisfying. It is warm, and now it is gone, so I continue to sip my tea until it too is gone.

I sit here and read about a glutinous man eating nine steaks for dinner with eclairs for dessert and some mints to follow because his wife asked him to lose weight for six months and instead he gained 70 pounds to rid him of her. He talks about filling his life with his gluttony and to stop filling the lives of others with his thoughts of caring for them or what they think. I will take from this not the gaining of fat on my body, but to fill my time with activities that bring meaning to my life and maybe those around me – not to waste it on trivial matters that fulfill someone else’s empty ideas and poor planning.

I sit here and listen to the weed whacker outside hacking the bits o’ grass and cutting their life in half. This is the desert. How much do you need to trim something that already grows so slowly and uniquely and most delicately…though obviously these plants were added to the design post-construction. I listen to the leaf blower clear the sidewalks of the little green leaves that fall from the tree that makes me feel like I am walking through a Japanese painting. It’s all so romantic and has rained these last three days. Rain at all is usually short-lived in the desert. I ran five kilometers in the rain and it stopped for no one – for hours.

I sit here and out the window I see leaves breathing in the wind, brown tree branches the size of my calf hanging in the breeze and obscuring some of my view of the golden hills (because of the sun resting on the desert dirt amongst the shrubbery) beyond the red-roofed houses on the other side of the cinder block wall – a wall tall enough to keep my eyes from wandering into someone’s bathroom routine, but low enough not to obstruct a view of the power lines that add to the decor that is the city.

I sit here typing this on someone else’s keyboard. I am surrounded by things that are not my own, but that are so familiar to me and my chair-of-peace. There is a small lamp keeping me company as the sun finds its way through the different windows of the day. There are knitting needles and seashells. There are headphones and chapstick. There are empty cups and partially read books (currently The Broom of the System). There is a spoon resting after its morning use and pens waiting to be written with.

I sit here watching my fingers keep themselves busy while also keeping an eye on my disobedient doggies – the dogs that are now playing cute and innocent on their makeshift bed – the same dogs that make treats out of things they don’t own (yarn, cashews, plastic bags) and the same dogs that have forgotten they are potty trained. Or is it I who have forgotten that they are dogs, not small non-talking children, that have, by nature, smaller bladders that need to be tended to more than I’ve deemed necessary lately.

I sit here in my red pajama pants with pink hearts – not with relevance to Valentine’s Day (a day reserved for over affection of teddy bears and chocolate), but one with reference to love – to love always and without judgment. I wear pink wool socks – not for coordination purposes, but to keep my toes from feeling that they are the farthest extremity from my heart – to keep them warm. And to cover the rest of me to conform to societal norm I wear a school-spirit sweater that I acquired from my mom’s house. It was not cool to wear this stuff while in school, but now, wearing her old taste, gives me a younger appearance – one that keeps me warm no matter the definition of cool that I lack to keep up with.