I had one of those marathon, obnoxious errand-running days yesterday, but I stopped to have breakfast at Einstein’s. And as I sat in the back corner of the restaurant, enjoying my panini and coffee, a family with a toddler plopped down next to me.
I winced, hoping the kid would stay quiet and not disturb my peace.
But I was wrong. He was absolutely darling. It was his mother who had no concept of an “inside voice.” Gah. *smack* Of course, the second I left, bigmouth left too.
I usually go to coffeehouses to write. Well, at least I used to — I never have the time anymore and certainly not the energy. But I go now to do mandatory daydreaming. I’m not one of those people who has to sit there with a newspaper or book to pretend like I’m OK with being alone. I really AM fine with having not a goddamned thing to do but people-watch.
It’s like the world going by is a conversation in and of itself, and I’m participating just by listening to it and not missing otherwise-insignificant moments. I watched a woman with a Virginia plate drop off her teenage daughter with a man with a Pennsylvania plate, no doubt switching custody in a public place, and I wondered what it was like for the “happily ever after” fairy tale to burst for them and yet I applauded them for finding a way to keep the family together in one way or another, even if it meant meeting halfway regularly.
And this is why I get annoyed with people who can’t shut their damn yappers for five fucking seconds. Because they miss everything and they force the rest of us to pay attention to them (or, at least, to concentrate really hard on NOT listening to them). Her husband looked like he’d tuned her out, so I was the only one who seemed to be aware of of her neverending litany of bitch, bitch, bitching.
This is why I tend to stop talking in mid-sentence sometimes. When I evaluate whether the rest of my thought really needs to be articulated (and it usually doesn’t), hey, I’m a conservationist — let’s stop verbal air pollution and give the dreamers the space and the silence we need to be inspired by moments we’d otherwise never to be able to be part of, if not for being on the periphery.