Meditation

I'm sitting on a wooden chair facing east, concentrating on the breath going in and out past the tip of my nostrils, counting each breath. Even though meditation is nothing more than this, I'm not very good at it, but right in this moment, I'm actually doing pretty well, following each breath.

Then the nerves in my leg that have been dead since my surgery earlier this month suddenly knit themselves back together for a moment, and electric, glittering pain shivers into the center of my thigh, and I sit there, rigid, until it passes a few seconds later.

Whatever concentration I had is shot, and my chattering mind jabbers at itself like a crowd after a lightning strike, until the timer goes off and I am released from my chair.