Today I was doing a little cleaning in the closet, and unexpectedly found an old vinyl record in the back drawer. I didn’t even remember how I got it - I probably bought it many years ago at a flea market simply because I liked the cover. And here it is again in my hands. I wiped it with a cloth and decided to turn it on - without much hope for sound, just out of curiosity.

When the needle dropped, the room was filled with a light hiss, and then a quiet and slightly hoarse melody. At first everything seemed a little imperfect - the sound was distant, sometimes it fell through, but after a couple of minutes I realized how integral this feeling was. It seemed to me that the room smelled of wood and caramel, although of course there was none. The music seemed to pull out of thin air all the memories I had kept somewhere deep.

I sat on the floor, leaning my elbows on the sofa, and simply listened as some long-forgotten moments emerged one after another: a summer trip on a commuter train, an evening with friends when we laughed until we cried, old books that I used to read almost by heart. It’s interesting how one sound can so accurately enter the subconscious. I was so carried away that I didn’t even notice how the record ended, and the needle was left spinning along an empty track.

Unexpectedly, this empty track, smooth and quiet, seemed no less a miracle than the music itself. As if even the silence after the sound has a special value - it seems to collect and preserve everything that was heard. I didn’t turn it on again right away. For a while, I just sat in silence, letting the emotions settle. It was like drinking lightly - not quickly, but slowly, with pleasure from each sip.

I thought about how often we pass by those things that hold more than they seem. The record that had been lying in the closet for years suddenly gave me a feeling of precision - as if I was in the right place, at the right time. This is not nostalgia, but rather a reminder: sometimes the key to inner balance lies in the little things. And you don’t need to look for it - it can be in the box, on the shelf, in the next drawer.

After listening, I carefully put the record back in its cover, but did not put it away in the closet. I left it in a visible place so as not to forget: at any moment you can turn it on again, breathe in the sound and escape from the noise of the outside world for a couple of minutes. And, perhaps, it is in such moments that that very state is born - when the breath is even, the gaze is soft and there is no rush.