The “In Box” always occupied a particular flat area of my desk, a particular field of view just in front of my mouse, where I could (and would) clearly see it fill and the mound of papers build, day after day.

Sort-of to-dos — those important enough to stay in my awareness, but not quite important enough to handle immediately — would land on the top of the pile, be buried by the next falling document, and never leave. This became my Pile of Disappointment, and I did eventually empty it, once a month or so; but in that month, oh what an emotional toll it took. It’s little lash reached out to lick my hand several times a day.

This summer I spent ten days on Prince Edward Island with my partner, my parents and my kids. PEI is a gentle backwater, whose lands and inhabitants resist rushing; before the bridge went in, when traffic washed across the channel by ferry boat, only a few times a day, they seemed to move only generationally. With my parents, we’ve been spending some part of each summer there for thirty years.

I walked the Atlantic beaches. Every year I’d walk the sand as gradually as the tide — there is no hurry in a circle, you’re just returning to the same place… — this year no different. With a local’s help, the Brackley shore we found was unpopulated, shelled and pebbled with a curious collection of flattened stones. I walked and watched the waves, and when the waves had filled me eyes I watch the sand, watched the stones, where one and then another caught my eye. One particularly round stone caught my imagination as well; I picked it up.

It lay in my hand like a doll house plate. Past it, on the sand by my feet, lay another, slightly smaller, whose color called my attention: I picked it up as well. I placed it in my palm beside the first. There seemed a geological gravity between them, and I set the second on the first. It balanced nicely.

Of course one stone is one stone, while two stones suggest a series, like two steps suggest direction, or two notes suggest a song. And so I built a small pyramid of peace: as I was walking for some time, other stones presented themselves, of varying colors and sizes. At one point I thought: this could add some quietness to my desk, where I stand for hours, day after day, making my digital, ephemeral contraptions, tricks of light that will flicker for a moment then vanish within the year, within a week, to be replaced by another flicker: this occupation at its heart the most trivial, and nothing but a modern invention, a make-work, a corporate entertainment.

When I thought of my desk, and where a bit of tranquility might best be received, the Pile of Disappointment stood up, like an over-eager student, and like the over-eager student… spilled over… waving its hand (which held that whip): me! me! How could I refuse?

Now my assembled stillness sits on my desk where the papers were: just at the edge of my vision, at the tips of my fingers, having traded a whip for a caress. It is in careful balance, so any agitation in my day will topple it, with a quiet but audible sandy sigh, requiring me to stop (as soon as I notice) and rebuild it. Sometimes I look over and notice its day-length pyramid, and remember… and an errant paper or bill or other loose thing is gently shifted to a more appropriate place, for later attention.

Ah… I would collect stacking stones for a living, and sell them for workplace health… though few would buy them. Still, a thought is lighter, cheaper and, having been spoken, may be compensation enough.

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