Daily 20

Mondays can be rough-- after a long, hot, uninspired day at the office, and an irritatingly sweaty walk home loaded with groceries, I arrived back at my crib feeling pretty cranky this evening.

But I fixed it with a swiftness: upon arriving home I changed into shorts and a tank-top, turned turned the mango I bought for $0.75 at the grocery store into a frothy milkshake (vis a vis my mom's sacred and irreduplicatable recipe), and adorned a small bowl of blue corn chips with grated cheddar cheese.

Armed with mango and blue corn, I set off--barefoot-- to a nearby elementary school/playground to sit and munch and ponder.

INCREDIBLE how twenty minutes of quiet, unstructured alone time can improve one's mood. I just sat on a park bench, watching the sky try on successively deeper shades of blue, and letting my mind drift from this thought to that, one memory to the next, a casual appreciative glance at the color of the school's brick buildings to an unhurried scan of the playground for the bird whose song is so simple and pretty.

I just sat there, unwinding in the most natural way possible, and feel a million times the better for it. In fact, I'm going to try and make a point of taking 20 minutes out of every day to just sit somewhere quiet and not let myself be bothered by anything; 20 minutes of pure, essential relaxation.

Who's with me?