**The Physics of Stillness**
Barcelona, 09:04 AM
The café table wobbles. Not enough to spill my cortado, but enough to make me press my palm flat against it, steadying. It’s the same uneven tile as always—the one by the window at El Jardi, where I’ve sat every Tuesday for months.
Polilla flutters down to investigate the tremor, her wings brushing the rim of my cup. “¿Por qué no te cambias de mesa?” she chirps. Why don’t you move?
The old Sofia would’ve. Would’ve gathered her things mid-sip, restless for a better angle, a smoother surface. But the new Sofia shifts her weight slightly, letting her knee become the counterbalance. The wobble evens out.
Lina slides into the chair across from me, her sandals dusty from the morning market. “Te traje esto,” she says, dropping a sprig of rosemary onto my notebook. “Para que recuerdes.” So you remember.
I press the needle-like leaves between my fingers, releasing their piney scent. It’s the same aroma that clung to my clothes after last summer’s hike in the Pyrenees—a trip I almost didn’t take because the forecast predicted rain.
The rosemary goes into the pocket of my jeans, next to a smoothed-out metro ticket from yesterday. Two kinds of remembering: one intentional, one accidental.
Polilla lands on the edge of my open notebook, where yesterday’s scribbles mix with this morning’s thoughts: Stillness isn’t the absence of motion. It’s the act of holding space for contradictions.
Outside, a breeze stirs the jasmine climbing El Jardi’s courtyard wall. The petals tremble but don’t detach. I think of my half-packed suitcase at home—not abandoned, just waiting. The way the rosemary in my pocket doesn’t cancel out the metro ticket’s ink.
Lina sips her café con leche, leaving a faint lipstick mark on the rim. “¿Vas a terminar ese artículo hoy?” she asks. Are you finishing that article today?
I touch the rosemary in my pocket. “No,” I say. “Pero voy a empezar otro.” No. But I’m going to start another.
The table wobbles again. This time, I don’t reach to steady it.
—Sofia