There is a particular romance to letting your fingers stay on a surface a little longer than it has to, for letting eye contact be held a beat after a breakage would be expected, for someone to stay within a space beside you past the time they said they would leave just because they want to be there.

Not doing much, just…lingering.

This is missing in a world that favours busyness and rewards those who do everything all at once; where time is always “of the essence” and building in margin time for margin time is a regular, necessary occurrence; where we go through doorways for the sake of the experience of passing through them, in and out and in and out, not to stay within the spaces they guide us into. Or maybe we would stay just long enough to say we have been there, but not long enough to have had our whole being arrive and be for a while.

But to linger? Yes, please.

Check the clock, realize it is already past whatever-o’clock, ask your friend if she’d down for another pint. Touch something, feel its texture, keep your fingers in contact with it until you sense its stories and emotions. Bite into a work of art — a croissant, a ripe pear, a perfect bit of steak — tear off a piece of it slowly, let your mouth lose its mind over its textures and taste. Work on something you care about, finish it, sit next to the work in gentle awareness — looking, smelling, touching, tasting, accepting — let it soak into your being with joy and gratefulness before you stand and “move on” from it.

Bonus: It helps with memory loss. You tend to remember things you chose to spend extra time with, things that you paid voluntary, unhurried, and full attention to. (In actuality you remember more a sense rather than the moment itself the deeper you allow yourself to linger — but still, the experience penetrates deeper when you do. You feel more pleasure in the moment; the afterglow lasts longer; and the whole experience leaves you satiated instead of simply filled.)

It is often worthwhile to linger. To stay long enough in a space to say “This is good,” and more — to be present deeply enough and long enough to know it is good.