A Transparent Morning

Cold air touches my face on the way to work. Winter mornings in Seoul are so transparent that I can see myself standing in them exactly as I am. Yesterday's fatigue still clinging to my shoulders, and the resolve to begin today standing there, too. Climbing the subway stairs, a thought: work is a strange thing. Neither something you do because you like it, nor because you hate it; the day passes among things you simply have to do. Sometimes it's so heavy that tears well up for no reason at all. And yet morning comes, without complaint. The lights of the coffee shop in the alley by the office are already on. The elevator door stands open as always. An unchanging day is sometimes heavy, but within that heaviness we are somehow holding on. Today, too, I made it to work safely. That is everything. The warmth of a cup of coffee seeps into my palm. A day in which nothing has happened yet. That empty time holds me steady for a moment. I catch my breath and open the day's first screen.