The clock sprung forward and out of my hands. Daylight savings. That is, the time got away from me and I dropped the bathroom clock in the sink. It spun like a penny in a coin toss and landed glass up, shattered. I tucked it into the corner of the counter, thinking I shouldn’t move it until I’m wearing socks and shoes.

Down in the office, the sunshine lands on the bottom shelf of the bookcase by 10 o’clock now. The dust is illuminated like a landscape. The bottom shelf is where the journals sit, three or four per year for approximately one shelf’s worth of my life. They must be dusty too, though not stagnant. Only dusty the way the body gets dusty, turning over skin cells every, what, seven years? Dust motes are skin, I think I read. Or I dreamt it. My daughter chases dust motes, so she’s often found dancing in the sunshine.

For all the things I can break, I can’t wreck my life. I’m still allowed my lot even when I can’t find the socks I thought I owned, the ones I ought to wear to move the shattered clock. There’s nothing to save if I’ve got nothing to lose. It doesn’t matter if I call what I’m doing dancing or floating, if this is skin or dust or both or neither.

Let’s feel the sun and trace its path. What else would we do today? We already won the toss.