I was walking and picked up a piece of bark from the ground, just because it was there. Rough, slightly wet, the underside crumbling. I held it for a minute and realized I couldn't remember the last time I held something with actual texture. Something that had weight and variation and different things going on in different places. My hands spend most of the day on glass. The same temperature, the same smoothness, morning and night. A love letter and a bill look the same under my fingertips.

I pressed the bark into my palm hard enough to leave a mark. Not to hurt myself, just to feel something specific. Definite. The mark faded in a few minutes. I put the bark down and kept walking. There's something being lost in the smoothness of everything. I don't know how to name it except to say the world used to have more edges, more grain, more of itself to offer the hand. What have you touched lately that surprised you with its texture? What does the world feel like to you right now, literally?