Slow is also a verb

I used to think slow was a setting. A dial you turned when life let you. Now I think slow is a verb. You slow a thing, you slow yourself, you slow the morning the way you slow a horse, with both hands, with a low voice.

This morning I slowed the kettle. I poured the water as if I had no other job. I slowed the toast. I buttered it standing up at the counter and I did not look at my phone, which was face down on the other side of the room, which had been my idea.

The day will speed up. It always does. But the first forty minutes were mine, and I made them mine on purpose, and I am writing this down so I remember that the slowness is not given to me. It is built. Every morning. By hand.