The Kettle Knows No Hurry

There is a small ceremony in my kitchen every morning, and it asks nothing of me but patience.

The kettle goes on. The cup comes down from the shelf. And for five whole minutes, there is nothing to do.

The water will not boil faster for being watched — and neither, I suspect, will we.

I used to fill that gap with my phone. Now I try to fill it with the window: the neighbor's cat on the fence, the light moving across the counter, the particular quiet of a house that hasn't fully woken up.

The practice

It is not meditation, exactly. It is closer to loitering on purpose. Five minutes of being unproductive in a world that bills by the quarter hour.

Try it tomorrow. Put the kettle on and refuse to do anything else. See what shows up in the gap.