source: yourself, at a window· ~12 db· duration: one long exhale
not the breaths of the day, which are small and forgetful. this one is wide — the chest opens, the shoulders give, and the inhale arrives as a faint hhhh at the back of the throat. the exhale is slower than the inhale, and ends in a sound that is almost a word but is not one. you have been holding the day. the breath puts the day down.
around it: the room going amber, then dim. the dusk outside settling in along the window; the lamps not yet on. the tick of a clock you had stopped hearing. the breath happens once and is the threshold between the working self and the evening self. before it: the day. after it: a different kind of patience.
it stops on its own — you cannot extend it without spoiling it. what follows is its own quiet, the quiet of a body that has admitted to itself it has been carrying things. you may notice you are smiling slightly; you may notice nothing. either is right. the second breath is an ordinary breath again, and the kettle can be put on.