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# The first five minutes
- URL: https://omiya-color.fueko.net/the-first-five-minutes/
- Published: 2026-09-24T09:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-11T09:01:27.000Z
- Description: The first minutes can disappear into small preparations. A short note on laces, misplaced keys, and the moment when getting ready finally becomes the beginning of an outing.
- Author: Nichole Becker
- Tags: Movement, Community, Essays, #Import 2026-11-11 20:45

It takes me a while to begin for someone who has already made the journey here. I can stand in the same place for several minutes, attending to small things I could probably have finished at home. A sleeve is folded back. I check which pocket holds the keys, then check it again.

The laces occupy more time than they need to. One feels different from the other, so I start again and discover that I preferred the first arrangement. I am aware of how ordinary this performance must look to somebody nearby. They are occupied with their own preparations and seem unlikely to be keeping an account.

A person I know says hello while passing. We exchange a few words about something that happened on the way here. I find the keys in the pocket I had already checked and move them without interrupting the conversation. For a moment, getting ready has become easy enough to continue while thinking about something else.

Then I look up and notice how much is already happening around me. Somebody has moved farther away. Another person is turning back toward the place where we began. I had been waiting for a more definite sense of starting, while the gathering was carrying on in several different directions.

I take a few steps and stop attending to the lace. It settles into the background along with the keys, the sleeve, and the other small arrangements that seemed to require so much consideration a moment earlier. When I next notice the place where I was standing, someone else is there, looking down and reaching toward a shoe.