It’s 4 o’clock Friday afternoon. I’ve been on deadline all week and, man, am I pooped. I spent the day (after filing my story) cleaning up my e-mail and trying to clean up the inside of my head. I think, you know, that I must be really, really tired. I have a tendency to push myself to keep going. The more I get done, the more there seems to be that I want to do or try.

My office at work has a window. I sit facing it. with my back to the door and, as I have a very friendly back, nobody takes offense at this. I look out onto a scraggy patch of grass with a scraggy fringe of wood behind it. Charlie hung a bird feeder on a pole outside the window, and I keep red rubber garden shoes in my office so that when I fill the bird feeder and scatter seeds on the ground, I don’t track mud onto the carpet. (My mama would be proud!) I think of my scraggy grass patch as Martha’s Nature Preserve.

Okay, so I’m sitting here, staring at my computer screen, working my tired self into a frenzy thinking about what I can get done before going to a 5:30 meeting. Then I look up and there on the ground is a flame-red cardinal, pricked by afternoon sunlight. He is so beautiful, and I’m so lucky have an office with a window through which I can see him.

Something in me relaxes. You know, I decide, I’ve earned a break from my usual state of driven productivity.

I’m thinking now about shutting off my computer in a few minutes and heading out to get a cup of coffee before my meeting. There’s a little shop close to the church in which we gather. Who knows? I might see some sober friends there.

I could tell them about seeing that cardinal and relaxing and they would understand.