It was Christmas eve and slightly below zero. Add in the wind chill and it was about -25F. I was on my way to my son’s house to pick him up. I’d offered to drive him to and from work because of the temperature. He usually walks; but as any northerner knows, temps this low can injure or kill a person easily.
There were people waiting at the traffic light beside the Aldi grocery store as I pulled up to the intersection. I watched, thinking how cold they must be. The wind gusts were so strong that the people swayed a bit as they waited for the light to change.
One of the women took off her scarf. As I watched, she wrapped it around another woman, tucking, then unwrapping and re-wrapping until she was satisfied that the other woman would be warm as they waited.
I couldn’t see much of them, bundled as they were against the cold. Were they friends, siblings, lovers, mother and daughter? It doesn’t matter. The love was clear in that woman’s behavior. It wasn’t her sacrifice. It was the careful way she wrapped, then re-wrapped the other woman in the scarf.
Her actions reminded me in that deja vu way of a winter night many years ago. I was at a stupid party off-campus at the rugby player’s fraternity. The party was continuing but I had an early shift at the country club. As I got ready to leave, he took my scarf from my hands and wrapped it around me just like that woman on the sidewalk.
He was, for sure, more than a little tipsy and I was as sober as ever. That’s the thing about non-drinkers – we’re always sober and thus often remember things that reside in a fog for others. How would 20-year-old me feel if she knew that thirty years later a woman on a street corner on a cold winter day would bring back that wisp of memory of a pretty boy from so long ago?
The leaf-birds were all blown from the trees by last week’s heavy winds. Now the branches are empty of those last brown leaves that clustered like sparrows in small groupings on our neighborhood trees. It’s a stark, rather lonely reminder that we are still in the early days of winter. The dark of January and bitterness of February await.
The coffee shop is warm, though, and bright. Pedestrians are back, striped Sephora bags swing from their forearms, coffee cups are clasped in their hands. Fred the dachshund hasn’t passed by yet. He usually walks his owner every day but the cold temps or perhaps a trip for the holidays have absented him from the sidewalk outside the shop.
A man walks by holding three cups in his hands. He’s with three young women – his daughters? – who are weighed down with bags from Cheeks and Lululemon and Apricot Lane. He looks tired but I hope he’s also delighted to be included in this shopping trip. This snapshot of his life – as I’ve crafted it, of course – reminds me of this quote:
We can drink hot tea and talk about
From Mother Talks Back to the Monster by Carrie Shipers
the future, how hard it is to be outgrown.
As I wait in line for my iced black tea (medium in a for-here cup), a woman rushes up to the lady in front of me and they hug. I don’t know what they say to each other. It’s mostly in Italian but the sentiment is clear through their smiles, if not their constant touches. They are glad to see each other. I wonder why we wait until the holidays to come together?
Along with all the holiday visitors in the coffee shop, there are many familiar faces. One that is missing today, we’ll call him Andrew (because that’s his name), comes in most days to draw. He sits in near stillness, often leaning back in his chair, his drawing hand holding a pencil, moving over a pad. Who has he sketched in his time here? Does he make up stories for his subjects like I do?
Last time I saw him, I was here late and he had fallen asleep, his head tipped back against the brick wall. It was closing time and the manager asked me, as I was leaving, if Andrew had awakened yet. “No,” I said and we exchanged a smile. Sometimes the third place is better than home, even when your eyes are drooping.
The coffee shop traffic has not stopped today. Right now, there’s a family ordering drinks and laughing with the barista. The man has an arm around the woman. Their child, a teenager, is smiling too as they search through the coffee cup beside the register. It’s always full of free stickers that vary by the season. My computer is currently festooned with small Dancer, Rudolph and Ho-Ho-Ho stickers, courtesy of that coffee cup.
The floor is cold where I’m sitting. My table is near the person-door, where the floor is brick and there’s the barest hint of a breeze from under the big garage door that will remain closed until next spring. It’s always warmer in the back but also more isolating. I like the activity by the register. Usually, I pop my earbuds in and listen to music (right now it’s an oldie, Tears for Fears, “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”) while I write. If I get stuck I can look up and be entertained by the activity around me.
Today, that activity includes a child squealing two tables away. He’s thrilled with something, though I can’t see what it is. There’s another group blocking my view of the table, though I can see the little boy’s blond head and a bit of his smile.
A woman stands beside him. She’s thrown her arms out in a theatrical jazz hands gesture, making everyone at the table laugh. That’s what she intended so she smiles, delighted with her success. It’s a heady thing, making people laugh.
As I walk back to my seat from the bathrooms, I notice a man playing chess on his computer. The man at the next table has a background picture of a stunningly beautiful woman. He has a window open. It’s positioned on the screen so it doesn’t block her face. I hope, and in the story I tell myself, it isn’t a coincidence.
Don McLean’s “Vincent” is playing now. That seems a suitable song for ending the day, don’t you think?
Much love.
