I’m at the coffee shop again, working. (Am I really working if I’m writing a blog post?) There are two friends sitting in front of me and they are giggling like 5 year olds. Their hair is fully gray, their cheeks patterned like wrinkled tissue paper. And they’re talking like they’ve known each other their whole lives. 

That’s one of my favorite things about the coffee shop, one of the things I missed the most when these places had no tables and we were all sitting at home, hoping to wait-out the pandemic. It’s a weird stranger connection, that feeling that you don’t know anyone and yet you know them all.

And just now, a woman shopping for an aluminum coffee mug knocked one over with a loud clang and the domino effect happened, three or four falling, though it sounded like thirty. 

She looked up to see if any of us had noticed. Yep. We all had. But I pretended like I hadn’t. Because who hasn’t experienced that (completely unnecessary) feeling of mortification?! 

Whoops. She just dropped a ceramic mug which, surprisingly, did not break. I wouldn’t give it a second drop though, just to test it. And I think she should probably stop touching things for a bit. Third time’s a charm, you know. 

A woman with a baby stroller is at the register with her entire family, husband, young child, new baby, and the grandparents. She looks tired but is wearing the best dress, striped pink, orange, blue, green, and white. Just looking at that dress makes me a little happier. And I’ll bet it makes her feel a little less tired. 

The giggling ladies have left, replaced by an older woman in a woolen shawl and a beautiful Gibson Girl hairstyle. Oh my gosh. She’s the mom of striped-dress woman. I did not see that coming but her fabulous style was definitely handed down, mom to daughter. 

Sometimes I eavesdrop on conversations but today I’m wearing headphones. Lizzo, right now, but it’s a playlist. The chair dancing will likely be replaced by something weepy in 5, 4, 3, 2, … 

Ha. I was wrong. It’s Devil Devil by MILCK. Dark but not weepy. 

The rush has slowed for the moment, a perfect time for aluminum-mug lady to come out and dust. Yes, she works here. I didn’t realize that initially, though it makes sense since she was doing a lot of stuff-touching. 

This is the coffee shop with the garage door that is opened when the weather is warm. The door is all glass so I can people/puppy-watch even when it’s chilly, like today. 

Every time I’m here I see a man who wears a big, very bright, knit cap over his locs. I’ve never seen him without the cap but I’ll bet his hair is long because the cap sits straight up on his head, ala The Cat in the Hat. 

Back to chair dancing: the song is 35 by Rob Ruha. Yes, people look when I chair-dance but I figure they’re people-watching, too. Might as well give them something to look at, right?

A young woman just entered and I am absolutely certain I know her. She’s probably my daughter’s friend but I’m damned if I know what her name is. She hasn’t noticed me or else she’s playing the long game, texting Haley to ask if I’m here. That has happened before but my darling girl always gives me a head’s up so I don’t accidentally ignore someone. She’ll even text me a picture so I can find them and say hello (like I’m cool or something). 

Last week, a young man was interviewing for a job at a table near me. He was so sweetly earnest and excited to show off his portfolio. It seemed to be going well but like all coffee shop interactions, I’ll have to write my own ending since I won’t know what really happened. In my story, he definitely got the job. Maybe even now he’s writing a social media post that I’ll interact with later on Twitter. 

Sad song time. You Were Meant For Me by Jewel just started. I know all the words because I used to sing it to Tristan when he was little. I remember singing, holding him in the dark in the middle of the night, the week after my mom died. “Hearts are broken every day.” I don’t think it will ever not be a hard song for me to hear.

But we are a tapestry, each of us, made up of all the threads of our experiences, right? That’s what people say. There are some threads I’d like to pull but that’s not the way our tapestries work. Thus, I listen to Jewel and think of my mom and how much she wanted to still be here with me and my sister, even as she hoped and occasionally tried to die. Life is confusing. 

There’s a big line all of a sudden. The waves of coffee-buyers are unpredictable. I looked up from my screen and watched the line develop. Then an older man walked in, got into line, looked at his watch, made a surprised face, and ran out the door. 

What’s his story? Forgot to pick someone up? Parking meter expired? Late for an appointment? Had a sudden urgent need to buy a sticky bun at the bakery across the street? (Yes, there’s a bakery directly across the street and yes they have delicious sticky buns – at least, so I’ve heard. I only look at sticky buns. I never eat them. Of course. Because that’s exactly what one is supposed to do when one encounters a sticky bun in the wild.)

Two young people just left – a very pretty girl who is majorly crushing on a hot-as-fire young man. Phew. There are still flames on the floor where he walked. I think she might come back in to touch them as they spark and expire. He looked at her as she turned away for a second and I’m pretty sure the feeling is mutual. It’s really obvious that they’re not currently together. I hope one of them says something. Life is too short to miss these opportunities.

Power and Purpose by Joseph Trapanese just started playing. I love how it builds to a crescendo. A little too powerful for a coffee shop afternoon though. I should be striding through the woods like Mary Oliver, scribbling words into my notebook with my number two pencil. She said that she could really only write if her body was in motion. Of course, she had a horrific childhood so the woods were also a true safe space for her. The coffee shop is safe enough for me, at least at the moment. 

Line out the door right now. I love the vibrancy of this community. There’s a young girl sitting at a table playing with a little feathered chick – the kind that hop when you wind them up. She’s so proud of it, holding it in her cupped hands as she sits there. Then, gently, she puts it on the table and it hops around, making a quiet clicking sound. (The sound was temporarily obscured by Macy Gray belting out I Try. But now I can hear it again.)

There’s a man on crutches waiting for his coffee. I’m watching discreetly to see how he’ll handle the coffee and the crutches. It doesn’t seem like a viable combination, at least from my crutch experiences. Then again, I have been known to nearly fall over while crutching along and overbalancing so I’m probably not the best judge of coffee-crutch skills. 

Bob Dylan is singing his portion of End of the Line by Traveling Wilburys. I don’t love Dylan but I do love him on this song. Tom Petty is my favorite of the group but honestly the whole collaboration is genius. How could it not be?

Well, crutch-coffee man nailed it. He put both crutches under his left armpit, coffee in his right hand, and slow-walked his booted-foot self to a table. Should I have offered to help? Maybe. But I was busy admiring his balancing skills. I would probably have knocked over my unlidded iced tea if I’d tried to help him. And honestly, he’s got boss-level skills

There’s a woman sitting by the garage door right now. She has red hair that is absolutely gleaming gold in the light and I suspect she doesn’t have any idea how glorious that mane looks. I’ll never understand people who don’t see the beauty of red hair, with its golds and russets and oranges and variegated reds. 

On the other end of the color spectrum (is it really though?), the young woman next to me has blue hair. Sometimes I think about dying my hair or getting a tattoo. Hair dye is a lot less painful so that might be the way to go. But I’d kind of like to get a tattoo to represent the WHO I’ve become as I’ve worked my way through enough trauma for the lifetimes of a few people. 

It’s nothing like the trauma of watching an army attempt to destroy your home but we don’t measure our traumas against other people. Trauma is trauma. It doesn’t need a scale to validate it. 

I’ve been singing a phrase for weeks now. After finally getting really annoyed because I don’t have any idea where I picked it up, I asked Ms Google for an assist. Turns out it’s from Fly Me to the Moon. I don’t listen to Frank Sinatra and I’ve never seen Squid Game … so why in the world am I singing that phrase (“in other words, hold my hand”) over and over again? I have concluded that the problem is – my brain no work right anymore. 

Time for more chair dancing. Everybody Everybody by Black Box. A banger. Even corpses in the ground tap their toes to this one. 

In case you think I’m still not working, I beg to differ. I have opened my scrivener app and stared at the screen for more than two hours now, occasionally changing a word or typing and deleting a sentence. #WritingLife #Progress

Okay, now I have six hundred, thirty-nine words. HA. And my battery isn’t quite dead yet. 

Someone is missing their vanilla iced coffee. Did you order and then accidentally leave without it? Please, go get it because they’re convinced that shouting louder will cause the coffee to get picked up. And it doesn’t seem to be happening.

I’m listening to Disturbed’s version of Sound of Silence. It’s pretty great. Better than the original and I was almost alive when the original came out, proof that I am not suffering from OG contamination.

And as I’m watching the shop fill up again, Sober by Lucy Spraggan starts playing. 

It’s gray outside now and the dynamic in the shop has changed. The customers, mostly women, are working on computers. One is on a zoom call. I see three close-up faces on her screen. This is why I don’t like zoom calls. When I’m sitting with someone physically, they are nowhere near as close as their face on a zoom call. 

There’s a quiet spell at the counter. The three employees are looking at someone’s phone – pictures of hairstyles, I think – and they’re giggling as one of them tries to describe something, maybe a haircut they want? Corporate office would probably disapprove but I love that they’re smiling. 

Welp, the chat is over. I swear a soccer team just walked in. Okay, slight exaggeration, it’s just a big friend group – they aren’t loud but they’re young. You know how that is – vibrant, almost buoyant, with the promise of life. 

The battery has just reminded me that it will be dead to me (pun intended) in about 15 minutes. That’s good timing. I’ve reached my writing goal for the day, plus this blog entry. And I have some research to do. Time to walk the hill home. It’s a daunting prospect but very satisfying to reach the top. Is that a metaphor? Maybe. It’s also just a walk. 

Much love.