As I was sitting here, wondering what post I could do for this Sunday. My mind, as usual, drew a blank. While searching within me to find a topic, I went too deep and tapped into my background cognitive processes. I suddenly became aware of everything I’m experiencing at this very moment, be it physical, or emotional. Let’s examine.

It’s exactly 16:33, on a cold Friday afternoon. I’m sitting in my girlfriend’s apartment, at a round, wooden table in the living room, in Place Rouppe, Brussels. The room is darkish, lit only by the light coming from the bright clear day coming in through two pairs of huge windows (to be honest, they actually look like doors). I can already see glimmers of the incoming sunset via the reflection on the windows of the building across the Place.

The building belongs to the Windsor Hotel, whose neon-white vertical sign captivated my interest ever since I arrived. What’s so special about the hotel? I have no idea, but I suspect that its name resonates with the fact I watched “The Grand Budapest Hotel” just last week. Above its lobby, I see two columns of windows, four stories each. Above those is a kind of separated floor where all the windows seem to belong to a single room (possibly a suite), totaling thus nine rooms. Seems small for a hotel, it must have depth that I can’t see from here.

Back inside, I’m left wondering how a silent room can be so loud. I hear the roar of the heating unit which sounds like water blasting through a pipe (I’ve turned it on to the maximum setting because I was very cold). Apart from random city noises that go away as fast as they appear, and the barrage coming from my keyboard, I also hear some soft Jazz in the background. Is my life so movie-like that I deserve a soundtrack? Is there a mystery to the origin of this lower-than-life music? Not really, it’s coming from my phone, which I left playing next to my girlfriend, while she took a nap behind me in the bedroom.

The cold winter doesn’t really let me describe what I’m smelling right now unless the smell of a stuffy nose is a thing. I can however feel pain; the small pain crawlling up my back because I’m sitting weirdly at the wooden round table, my knee pain, which is still palpitating in my knee, despite me having proped my leg up on a chair… maybe that’s why my back is hurting. Unfortunately, these belong to the list of things that I don’t need to search deep within in order to find.

As usual, my mind is plagued by all the things I want to do. I want to learn, I want to paint, I want to work, I want to cook, I want to write… it seems I made up my mind this time. Despite all the pain and indecision, I feel at peace, having nothing to do for a couple of days except to spend time with the woman sleeping behind me.

It’s exactly 16:48, and the afternoon is still cold. Soon the neon lights will shine, and my life will unpause, I will rejoin my girlfriend and we’ll probably cook dinner. My mind will still remain a mess, full of things to do and the inability to settle on one. I say it’s better than being bored.

Unpause.

A taste of sunset, courtesy of the Windsor Hotel