Re-forming

I watched, as the cloud of smoke jetted out from rounded lips, formed into a perfect ring, spreading, dissolving, re-forming, and at last in the encounter with a cross-draft, vanishing only to be replaced by a second, and a third. What a skill, what an idle and utterly superfluous expertise to have practiced - a perfection attained to no real purpose, and yet somehow still marvelous. How long does it take to achieve mastery - ? - and then in the blank space right there, drops the question: and why of all things, spend energy for such a thing?

Maybe it's a gift, sign-pointing to having absolutely nothing to do, and defying anyone to judge. Yes maybe - on that thought I feel the release of breath I was unaware of holding, the drop of shoulders whose tension was just assumed. There's nothing here that needs reforming.

That settled, we can proceed to weightier matters and clear the clouded air. Let's go.