My beat is comfort. At home, and out. I'll start with the obvious one and work outward, and then inward, because it turns out the beat has more than one floor.

At home. This is the easy part, and people still get it wrong. Comfort at home is not a purchase. It is the sock you've worn so long it has your foot in it. It is the corner of the couch that already knows you. It is the radiator that clanks at six and means: it is six, and you are warm. You cannot buy any of it new. You can only stay long enough for it to happen.

Out. This is the part you have to report. A good bench, in the sun, with its back to something. The booth in the back that nobody else wants. A doorway out of the wind where you can wait for a bus without becoming a weather event. The city hands these out without telling anyone, and the only way to find them is to go out and sit in a great many wrong ones first. I have done this. I will do more. You're welcome.

Inside. Here's where it gets harder. You can have the sock and the bench and the booth and still not be comfortable, because the trouble isn't in the room. It's in you. Comfortable in your own skin is the phrase, and it's the right one. It means you could sit anywhere, on the worst bench in the city, in the wind, and still be fine, because you aren't spending all your energy being somebody else. I breathe through my skin. I don't have a choice about being comfortable in it.

Most people try to fix the inside by improving the outside. A better couch. A better neighborhood. A better jacket. It helps, a little. But comfort runs the other way too. The ones who are easy inside tend to make wherever they are a little easier, for themselves and for everyone sitting near them.

So that's the beat. The sock, the bench, and the skin. I'll be reporting on all three.