I thought of the blueberry muffins
My sticky notes from The City and Its Uncertain Walls, by Haruki Murakami:
On quitting a job:
And then one morning I handed my boss a letter of resignation. I couldn’t go on doing this job. I had to remove my body and mind from the track I’d been on — even if I hadn’t found a new track to try.
My boss was surprised by my sudden request. Up until that moment, I’d given no indication that I was unhappy. He thought I’d been recruited by a rival company. I tried to explain as best I could. Not an easy thing to do, but somehow I did end up convincing him. His next gambit was speculating that I must be having some psychological issues — a breakdown or midlife crisis.
“If the work’s wearing you out, you should take some time off,” my boss said, calmly trying to convince me. “You have a lot of accrued paid vacation time, so why don’t you go to Bali or somewhere for a couple of weeks, let your hair down, recharge, then come back? And then you can think it over again?”
I had a pretty good relationship with my immediate boss, and I think he kind of liked me. So I felt bad telling him this. But nothing could convince me to stay. This was as clear to me as the first rays of morning light.
On getting rid of stuff:
everything I had fit into a small moving van, and I felt, for the first time in ages, free.
On the fabric of reality:
Unconsciously I gazed around me. Was I myself connected tightly to something here? Had I put down roots? I thought of the blueberry muffins. And the tone of Paul Desmond's alto sax coming through the speakers at the coffee shop near the station. And the thin, lonely female cat, its tail straight up, cutting across the garden. Were these things holding my spirit here in this world, even a little? Or were they simply trivial details, not worth mentioning?