Today the cuckoo called six. I stood barefoot at the edge of the field, and my fingers were in blueberry juice. No one nearby. Only the smell of grass and a slightly damp wind. Sometimes it seems to me that real life does not happen in conversations, but somewhere between a sunspot on a shoulder blade and the breath of a bush warmed by the whole day.

I just touched a branch, and it showered me with drops of green. It tickled. I giggled like a girl and dropped the basket - the berries fell into the grass, as if time allowed them to fall. Then I sat in the grass, choosing them with my fingers. Black, ripe, soft. And one piece of summer after another dissolved on my tongue.

When I feel too noisy inside, I go where the silence knows my name. Where I can lie down on the ground and feel goosebumps running down my spine from the blades of grass. Where I don’t have to hold my stomach in and my thoughts under control. I wasn’t always like this. I used to wear stilettos, run to meetings, count calories and minutes. And then one day I woke up and realized that I wanted to hear the cuckoo call six.

On such evenings, the body becomes more honest. It breathes, whispers, asks to be kinder to it. I listen. How many years have I ignored it? Starved it, pushed it in the gym, hid it under my clothes or put it on display, but I didn’t hear it. And today it speaks to me in the language of berry juice, scratches from branches, soft earth between my toes.

I ate blueberries, sitting in the grass. Then I licked my fingers. Slowly. Without rushing. Because haste makes even sweet things bland. And I wanted to feel - for real, as if for the first time - the taste, the juice, the summer. And my body, which remembers all this better than the mind.

I was not beautiful at that moment. My hair was tousled, there was a purple spot on my chin, my skirt was all dusty. But I didn’t need to be beautiful. I just was. Alive. Present. Without roles, poses and filters.

At some point, it seemed to me that I was a berry. A little overripe, soft, but sweet to the point of trembling. Not perfect. But real. With taste.

All I did today was pick berries, lie in the grass, stroke the bark of a tree, watch the ants carry their prey. It doesn’t look like something significant. But maybe that's where the most important thing is? Not in achievements, but in feelings. Not in plans, but in touches.

I thought how strange it is - the more air in life, the more it is filled with meaning. The less effort, the more feelings. I didn't need anyone nearby. But if someone had been nearby, I would have, perhaps, given them the ripest berry. Just like that. Without words. Because sometimes you don't want to talk. You just want to share - the wind, the grass, the silence.

When I returned home, my cheeks were burning, and my feet were covered in dust. I made tea from the mint that I had picked myself that morning, and sat by the window. The house was quiet. Only the clock ticked - evenly, stubbornly, alien. And I wanted all the time to be measured in cuckoo cries and the number of blueberries on my fingers.

I thought: if happiness could be measured, mine today would weigh about two and a half handfuls. Slightly warm, slightly sticky, very real.