Lunch break

A surprising moment of freedom.

As I was leaving for my lunch break, I remembered I didn’t pack a book to read this morning. This could have been a reason to panic — a whole hour on my own without something to read! Gasp! — if it hadn’t been for the fact that I do work in a library. So I checked something out from my ever growing “must check this out sometime”-list and went in search of something to eat. A not very stellar salad, delicious potato chips, water. I found a bench and sat down to munch.

And then something extraordinary happened.

I didn’t read.

It was the salad, I think. Or maybe the book I checked out was too big. Balancing it on my knees while handling the fork… too complicated. (Yes, too complicated. Shut up.)

But here’s what’s really astonishing: I didn’t feel the need to read. To bury myself in a cocoon of fiction, to demonstrate my separation from the world by staring intently at a page with words on it.

I just sat there, slowly eating my salad and my chips, looking at people going by. Wondering, as young girl walked by, if I ever looked that self-assured, that beautiful and calm and optimistic. Vaguely considering using my lunch break to go running sometime, with that cuddly feeling that comes with an action you’ll never actually have to put into practice. Tilting my head back to look at the bright green leaves above me.

I felt relaxed. I felt comfortable. I felt — free.

What a curious lesson: that, just as a book can give me wings, there are times when it can also fetter me.