I can’t start the day properly without coffee; lots of coffee. So here I sit, in a corner of a local coffee shop, sipping my brew, learning how to hook up my new Dell XPS to my phone via a mobile hotspot (new achievement unlocked!) and watching the world pass by, or at least the part of it that funnels through this particular establishment.
The bulk of the traffic is standard Monday morning fare; office workers, medical personnel, even a few police, all clearly on their way to start the workday, picking up mobile orders. Where are they going? That woman in scrubs, is she a nurse? A med tech? Is she going to work or just getting off shift? Does she work in an Emergency Room? With Cancer patients? Maybe she’s on the OBGYN floor and gets to see babies all day. Does she like her job, or is it just a way to pay the bills? Is she happy? She doesn’t look particularly happy. Of course she IS here for coffee, and heaven only knows that I probably look anything but happy until I have had at least my second coffee of the day.
Ok then, what about this guy in the Carhart workpants, jacket and Cat work boots? He’s got thick work gloves strapped to his belt. Is he a lineman? Construction worker? Maybe he works in a warehouse, operating a forklift or something. Is this what he imagined himself doing when he was a senior in high school? Does he joke around with his fellow workers during lunch? Does he have a wife? A girlfriend? Does he go out partying on weekends, or is he an introvert that prefers staying home and reading or playing video games?
There’s a woman in the corner. She is sitting sideways in her chair, a grocery bag at her feet. She takes one item at a time out of her bag, looks at it and turns it over in her hands before putting it back and taking out another object. I see her handle a bottle of water, a wallet, a hair clip, an umbrella, a box of saltine crackers, a bottle of hand sanitizer, a pair of balled up socks, a bottle of Tylenol tablets. Nothing out of the ordinary, but no computer, no phone, no tablet.
I am distracted from the woman by an elderly man in Bermuda shorts and knee-high white tube socks and a pair of Birkenstocks. His wire-rimmed glasses twinkle as he shuffles towards the counter, but he has a ready smile for everyone he makes eye-contact with and he grins at me on his way out. “Young lady, it is WAY too early to be working!” I grin back and go back to my typing.
The woman in the corner is still sitting sideways in her chair. She is now sitting very still, staring at the wall as if the entire history of the world can be read on the bland, beige colored walls. She has a coffee cup in front of her on the table, but does not appear to drink from it. I suspect that it has been empty for a while now. There is a reason she is sitting here at 5 a.m. on a Monday morning, staring at that wall. I notice that her hair is rather disheveled and that her clothes are clean but rumpled. Is she ok? Is she a homeless person just taking advantage of a warm and open space? Maybe she’s waiting for someone, or running from someone. She does seem a bit on edge, as if she expects someone to burst in and start yelling at her at any moment. Part of me feels as if I should ask if she is ok, another part says not to butt in to someone else’s business.
Coffee shops really are microcosms of society. In the last ten minutes I’ve seen a professional-looking woman in a hijab, a guy in bike shorts and a helmet who tucked his coffee into his bicycle’s drink rack (they make drink racks for bike’s?) and pedal off into the increasingly heavy traffic. Seriously dude? You are biking to work during a Monday morning commute? Dude must have a death wish. I shake my head and one of the barista’s who is cleaning up the table next to me says “crazy, if it doesn’t spill it’s going to be stone cold by the time he gets to wherever he’s going.” I have to agree.
I’ve seen a guy in a power suit who looks like he’s on his way to conquer wall street (he can’t be too important though, getting his own coffee, don’t the really high ups have assistants for that kind of thing?). There’s a mom in sweats, baby sleeping on her shoulder. A teen who looks like she should be in school. Maybe she’s on her way to school. Yep, she steps out of the shop and gets into a car being driven by a woman who appears to be her mother. Hope that helps you get through Algebra kid!
The woman in the corner is sitting with her hand over her eyes now, as if the indirect lighting is giving her a headache. Her face looks haggard, as if she hasn’t slept well in a very long time. I wonder again if I should see if she’s ok, if she needs help, but I am distracted by the college age kid who comes in and sets up shop two tables down. Computer, stack of notebooks, pens, several reference books, a phone stand that he tucks his smartphone into. Guy is a regular traveling office. He pops a pair of ear buds into his ears and immediately tunes out everyone and everything around him.
The woman from the corner is standing in front of my table now, her head tilted sideways. She is thin, very angular, like a bird. She keeps looking warily at the kid two tables down, as if she is afraid that he might leap from his table and pounce on her like a cat. k her “I’m sorry” she says quietly, “do you have the time?” I tell her that it is 6:04 and she nods, says thank you, picks up her bag of miscellaneous items and goes out to stand under the sign for the bus for downtown which pulls up five minutes later. Well, that explains that.
I am distracted again, this time by a customer picking a coffee up by the top, which of course pops off and sticky caffeinated liquid splashes out in a four-foot radius. The guy who spills the coffee swears loudly, then apologizes to the mother whose baby has woken up at the noise and is now crying loudly.
I don’t know these people. I have never seen them before. Chances are I will never see them again. But for just a brief moment, they were a part of my life, intersecting my own moment in time as I sit here typing at a table, finishing up my own coffee and trying to gather enough courage to carpe the heck out of this day.
Which I will do now.
There is no point to this particular ramble. Just an observation, there are lives being lived all around us. Everyone we come in contact with is dealing with issues we can’t even imagine; schedules that overwhelm them, bills that are overdue, kids who are misbehaving, achievements, disappointments, heartaches, new love, friendships old and new, projects and goals and dreams.
Take a moment if you will, to be a part of the world around you, if only for a moment in a coffee shop.
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