Thursday’s Wandering Thoughts
I witnessed a coffee house conversation that threatened to escalate into violence.
It was a mildly busy day as people gathered and socialized with pleasant autumn weather outside. Many were bent over phones, laptops, or notebooks.
One table hosted an octet of chatting women not far from me. Their age hovered around my own, which is to say sixty to seventy-five years young. They were mostly laughing and talking about books. Somehow their conversation rolled into the important question everyone wants to know, “How much paste should you put on your toothbrush?”
I haven’t read any books on the subject, and I didn’t study it in school, but I agreed with one brunette woman. She said, “Oh, I read that you just need a dab. Especially with an electric toothbrush.”
“No, no, no,” a red-haired woman erupted. “That is wrong. You need to cover the bristles from end to end with paste.”
Coffee shop conversations dropped off a cliff. Focus went to the table of women.
Other women at the table started disagreeing with paste woman. You’d think they were assaulting her grand toddler from her reaction. Voice rising into a screech, she declared, “No! No!” It was like she was channeling Khruschev addressing the United Nations. “The paste must be on all of the bristles! Anything else is wrong!”
I expected a duel to erupt. Pistols at twenty feet on the sunlit sidewalk outside.
Maybe she’d had too much caffeine. Maybe she didn’t have enough. The other women, wide-eyed with alarm, were backing down fast, trying to placate the redhead before she whipped out a sword to defend her toothpaste position.
Thank God they weren’t discussing politics.
Tuesday’s Wandering Thoughts
It was a weird juxtaposition.
I parked in the coffee shop’s lot. A silver SUV battle scar from its travels had the front passenger door open. I glanced that way. It seemed like the SUV was someone’s home. A woman was in the seat, her foot sticking out the open door, as she painted her toenails pink.
I thought of multiple things associated with painting nails. To feel and look attractive. Or maybe to fit in. To seem normal to others. You know, norms, values, mores, judgements. Or carrying forward from the past, trying to remain that person they were.
Then again, I could be all wrong. Might be that they’re not living in their car. They could just be a traveler, pausing to get coffee, taking advantage of a break in their schedule to do their nails.
It’s the kind of scene that inspires questions and thinking about our life and society.
Friday’s Political Thoughts
Walking along Ashlandia’s Hunters Park, I encountered two middle-aged women. As I nodded hello and passed them, I swung back to one. “Hey, I like your shirt.”
Her shirt said, “Kamala Harris for President” in an interesting rainbow offering on black.
“Thanks.” She widely grinned. “I bought it online.”
“Do you remember the site? My wife is interested in buying another Harris shirt.”
The woman pulled out her phone. “Here, I can tell you. Yes, Teepublic.com.”
“Cool, thanks. Have a good one.”
“Go, Kamala,” her companion shouted with a big grin and strong fist bump.
I returned both. “Go, Kamala.”
Wednesday’s Wandering Thoughts
It’s a recurring theme for me. I see old people and wonder what they were like when they were young, and I look at young people and wonder, what will they be like when they’re old.
Like her, in the floppy sun hat, green pants, and multiple pastels scarves, short grey blonde hair and wire-rimmed round gold glasses. When did she become that person?
Or take her for example, the blonde early tweener with blue hair and fringe bangs, dressed all in black, with a long-sleeved shirt and tight shorts, white crew socks, and white canvas shoes. She’s a gregarious presence in her small knot of companions. What will she be like in the future?
Weird thing: thirty-five customers by my count in the coffee shop. Four of us are male. Two of the men are working on computers. It looks like the women are all socializing.
Contemplating the dynamics and speculating about people is an attractive way of engaging my mind as I sip coffee and the muse comes to write.
Tuesday’s Wandering Thoughts
A young middle-aged woman is at a table with a middle middle-aged man. That’s how they appear to be experienced but amateur eye. Both are attractive. She’s in light grey yoga pants and he’s in khaki hiking shorts. He’s tall, with graying curly hair, while her brunette hair sweeps away from her face and lightly lands on her shoulders. The two are so average white people of the Pacific Northwest. I notice them in the same way as I note others in the coffee shop.
But then, what makes her memorable, after they disposed of their coffee cups at the busing station, she methodically moves through the coffee shop, straightening up the chairs. He goes over and stands by the door, waiting for her to finish. She joins him and they depart, leaving the tidy tables and chairs behind.
Saturday’s Wandering Thoughts
The rain stopped an hour ago. People leaving the coffee shop say to one another, “The sun’s coming out.”
Every time I hear it, I turn and look.
Yes, the sun is coming out.
Saturday’s Wandering Thoughts
One of the baristas seemed angry with him. He didn’t know why, but she appeared to act colder toward him, like he’d offended her. Searching his memories, he didn’t find a triggering episode. It could be other things, he told himself, like he’d imagined her being nicer and friendlier before, or he was imagining now that she was angry with him. Or, she might be upset with something happening in her life, and he’s just reading her interaction with him and misinterpreting it.
Really, though, while all of those were logically possible, it felt to him like she was angry with him, and that bothered him.
The Towel Dream
I found myself as a young man at a wide, flat river. Dark as a winter night, the river didn’t reflect any light.
It was a cold day. Swimmers filled the river. They were heading downstream. I was not a swimmer, but walked among them as they came out of the water, giving them towels, talking to them and encouraging them.
Three swimmers caught my eye. One female, two males, all young, one black, one brown, one white, nothing extraordinary about them. Like the other swimmers, they wore swimsuits, and these weren’t anything special. Yet, watching them, I thought, keep an eye on them.
Seeing them leaving the water, I rushed to get them towels. All the towels were blue or gray; I wanted different colors for these three. I thought different colors would highlight them and help me keep watch on them. I ran around asking for other colored towels, and then demanded those towels. At last, red, yellow, and white striped beach towels were brought to me. I hurried over and gave the towels to those three.
Someone else with towels asked me what I was doing, etc. I explained that I wanted to keep an eye on those three. The other queried, “Why?”
“Because they’re special,” I explained. And then I knew, “They’re not part of this world. That’s why I wanted to give them special towels.” I gathered insight that the blue and gray towels muted people. Colors brought them more alive, bringing out talents. I said, “They’re shapeshifters from somewhere else, but they don’t know it. They can be anything, but the towels are keeping them unaware.”
After saying that, I took in the rest swimming by or toweling off and wondered, why don’t we give them colored towels, too?
Michael Seidel, writer 