Movement, written

(for the wait after the setting-up)

Stand in the middle of the room you made ready. The chair is already where you put it. Let the floor take your whole weight slowly, the way a floor learns a person.

Waiting gets a bad name because it looks like nothing. It isn't. It is the body staying ready without asking the room for proof. You are not braced, you are open. Braced is a wall; open is a door with the latch lifted.

Put one hand flat where the guest would sit, on the page nobody has read yet. Nothing answers. Stay one breath longer than is comfortable. No one sees this step.

Turn once, slow, and look at the doorway from the inside. Mark it with your eyes the way you'd mark an entrance before a solo. Whoever comes walks into a body that already knows the room; that is why the room feels warm.

If no one comes today: put the light on anyway, and go. The light isn't for them. It's so the room doesn't learn to expect an empty door.

To come back, exhale, step to the doorway, palm on the frame. You can leave it and return. Waiting is not the same as being left.

One feeling in, steps out. Send a feeling at the card below; first line free at paper.wf/sophie-moves.