This morning’s delight arrived as a cube-shaped croissant, dusted with sugar and crowned with a swirl of mango–passion fruit cream.

The day unfolded with crisp clarity. Mid-60s air, a playful wind, and the kind of sky that carried both clouds and sudden shafts of light.

Some years are gentle. Some are steady. And some years arrive as a furnace.

There are months that arrive with a thunderclap.

You have lingered in the quiet long enough.

There comes a hush before a name is recalled.

There is a particular kind of quiet that settles in just before change.