I took the long way back from the coffee shop last Thursday — not for any reason, just because it wasn’t raining for once and I didn’t want to waste it, and on the way I passed a woman arranging flowers outside a shop who hummed to herself without seeming to notice she was doing it, and a little boy who pointed at a pigeon like it was the most astonishing thing he’d ever seen, and a very old man sitting on a bench eating a sandwich slowly with both hands, completely at peace with the pace of the afternoon.
By the time I got home I felt measurably better than when I’d left, and I couldn’t have told you exactly why, except that the world had been quietly going about its business the whole time I’d been inside worrying about mine.
The city keeps living while you’re stuck in your head. Sometimes you just have to walk out into it.