Rosalind Achebe writes about how energy rises and falls across an ordinary day. She is interested in what the body actually notices at seven in the morning and at three in the afternoon, and in describing those hours plainly rather than prescribing anything about them.
When you're worn down, the instinct is often wrong: some kinds of tired want a closed door, and others want a familiar voice on the other end of the phone. Getting it backwards makes the evening worse, not better.
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Some afternoon snacks leave me sharper for twenty minutes and then flatter than before. Others just quietly hold me steady.
There is a specific kind of cold that only exists in the seconds after you leave a warm bed, and it seems…
Some lunches leave me reaching for the couch before the plate is even rinsed. I started paying attention to which ones, and…
Some evenings I skip the direct route home and take the longer one instead, and my legs tell a completely different story…
There is a specific second when the body lets go of a held breath, and it happens lower and later than you…
Carrying groceries up three flights turns an ordinary errand into something my whole body registers, and I have started paying attention to…
Some quiet is just the absence of sound. Other quiet has a texture, and it seems to only show up once a…
Before you move, before you check the time, there is a strange blank window where the body is deciding what kind of…
Some afternoons a twenty minute nap sets everything right again. Other times you wake up from it feeling just as flat as…