The woman in front of me has left her wallet in the car.

She says it the way we all say it, half laughing, apologizing to the whole line, and the cashier just waves her off like it happens every hour. It probably does.

I'm standing there with a basket. Bag of chips, carton of eggs, a bag of green apples, candy grapes, a birthday card balanced on top. And I can feel myself doing the thing. Shoulders creeping up toward my ears. Breath going shallow. This small, unreasonable hurry, as if my whole evening is being spent by somebody else.

Nothing is wrong. That's the part that gets me. A line is just a line. But my body is reacting like time is being taken out of an account that's already overdrawn.

I teach people to slow down for a living. I still catch myself in grocery stores.

There's an old thought in the Yoga Sutras about the mind and all its turning, and how much of our unrest is just the turning itself. Standing there with the eggs getting heavier than eggs have any right to be, it landed. The line was never the problem. The wanting to be already home was.

So I did this plain, grounding thing I know. I put my attention in my feet. I let the out breath run a little longer than the in breath. The woman came back with her wallet, unhurried now, and the cashier asked about her day like the whole thing had just been a visit.

It's the same line everywhere, I've decided. The coffee counter, waiting for a misto with my name almost right on the cup. The light that takes one cycle too long. The kettle, of all things, in my own kitchen.

A life is mostly lines. If peace only starts once I'm through them, I'll spend my life waiting to start.

I'd rather stand in them awake.