There's a word for the moment before: not the ending, not the beginning—the suspended place between them, where everything still is, yet everything is already changing. I've been living in that word for months now. It's called ‘almost’.

The house is quiet—the soft, unhurried kind that belongs to no one yet. It’s an hour I guard with something close to ferocity, and at the center of it is a coffee so specific, so irreplaceable, that when we left Tokyo, finding it stateside wasn't optional. Some rituals aren't habits. They're non-negotiable.

Life has been a lot lately—the beautiful, overwhelming, blink-and-you'll-miss-it kind of a lot. So before March gets away from me entirely, I'm doing what any reasonable person does when the calendar is full and the heart is fuller: I'm making a list.