Today in a coffee shop

[vaneramos]

Photo: Guelph, St. George's Square, this afternoon.

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Too many writers have written great books and gone insane or alcoholic or killed themselves. This [writing practice] teaches about sanity. We are trying to become sane along with our poems and stories.

~Natalie Goldberg, Writing Down the Bones

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A little old woman sits in the Bookshelf Café. She is not especially old, but very little. Her round-rimmed glasses take up most of her face under the bowl-edged bangs of her pewter hair. She often sits at this same table near the cash register, where she can see everyone who comes through the door. Her clothing is generally understated. Today she wears a greenish-black wool vest over a dark blouse and skirt. The mug of latté she cradles in her hands is as wide as her jaw.

A young server comes through the door to start her shift. Ziggy, remember the pretty blonde I complimented on her neck chain? The lady greets her by name; the girl stops to chat with her and announces her birthday is coming up.

"Mine is the fifth!" says the lady. "Are you a Scorpio, too?"

They proceed to compare Scorpio notes. My younger daughter is a Scorpio. The young woman relates details an astrologer told her. But someone in the back has started a cappuccino machine, drowning her adjectives.

"Passionate!" the young woman's voice rises above the din, and she repeats it for emphasis: "Passionate!"

Finally the noise stops.

"I got a lot of the Sensitive," the lady says.

"Sensitive, yeah, I'm really sensitive."

Now the older woman begins describing a speaker she heard, perhaps a writer, artist or astrologer. A guru, in any case. Her words are expressive, gestures wide as short arms will reach. Her voice descends to a deep alto when she imitates him.

"He's not a run-of-the-mill personality."

She should know, this little woman who measures the height and breadth of everyone who enters the coffee shop.

"If you sit here long enough you can see everybody you want to see from this chair," she says. "They might not see me."

She loves this chair, calls The Bookshelf an institution. Finally she realizes she has detained her audience: "Do you have to work now?"

The pretty blonde looks at the clock and says yes, she ought to start soon. But still she stands and listens to the little woman for a few minutes longer.

"You're a good listener," says the lady. "You would make a good counsellor."

Eventually the young woman disappears into the back of the restaurant, soon to reappear with a cloth for wiping tables. The lady sits alone with her big mug again. Her eyes follow the movements of customers leaving and entering. Just once her grey eyes rest in mine for a moment, the eyes of a curious heart. I believe she lives alone.

Comments

[ghostsandrobots.livejournal.com]

Yes -- she was also wearing long silver earrings. Seemed sweet.

I like these observations; it's easy to picture her conversing with someone that way.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

I feel guilty about eavesdropping, but I love discovering characters like these. People are so interesting.

[ghostsandrobots.livejournal.com]

Funny about eavesdropping -- for some reason it just occurred to me that I feel less nervous about that than I do about taking strangers' pictures. Doing that kind of freaks me out and I've only managed to pull it off a couple times. I feel like the two things are equivalent, though. The only difference is in how you make your record.

I find myself eavesdropping all the time. Guess there are some conversations I break away from because it seems like a sensitive subject, but mostly in public places it seems like people who are speaking loudly enough to be eavesdropped upon don't particularly care if anyone else hears.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

A photograph is more invasive because its subjects may be readily identifiable to other people. When I publish a conversation like this, I can choose to make the participants as anonymous as I want. That's a lot harder to do with a photograph.

[ghostsandrobots.livejournal.com]

Good point. Also, it's much easier to pretend you're not listening than it is to pretend you're not pointing a camera at someone.

I'm convinced that advanced technology will continue to blur the differences you talked about, which at this point are very much still in evidence. It is harder to alter an image and make someone unrecognizable than to write and simply leave out or change details that would reveal that person's identity.

Either way, I think it comes down to the observer's intent and desire to keep his/her subjects anonymous.

I know this entry wasn't really about astrology, but...

[eloquentwthrage.livejournal.com]

As a Libra on the cusp of Virgo, I find myself surrounded by other Libras, Virgos, Aquarians, and Geminis. Not sure why this is, but whenever someone tells me their sign, if they are one of these four, I always remember. Geminis, in fact, seem to haunt me. I either love them or hate them, or both.

Re: I know this entry wasn't really about astrology, but...

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Curious. A friend was reading people's star charts at one of our Sunday dinners recently. Much of it made sense, and yet when I consider it rationally it makes utter nonsense. I'm a typical Pisces, for what it's worth.