I’ve got a compression bandage taped to my face, and I’m trusting this old plastic chair to hold me up because the Dr. said to be careful of the stitches in my back—“I only put in two,” she said.
I’ve been ordered to go home and sit still for a day after a slightly complicated morning of skin biopsies. “Watch the stupid TV,” she says with a smile. I love stupid TV. I also love sitting on the patio with my dog, which is what I’m doing now, wondering if this is why dogs are so happy—they relax. A lot.

It’s a bit unsettling for me to be still for a whole day, though, because I’m (as usual) behind on about 10 million projects, which makes it hard to find peace in the sitting, but as I stare at my happy dog and look at her beloved, dirty tennis ball laying a few yards ahead to where she points her nose, I realize that contentedness is in the hopes of what lies ahead, and in the ability to wait for it.