Hanging up the phone, I wrongfully cut him off. It’s the nature I’ve spent years nurturing. I own it.
He was about to use a euphemism that would send me running for the hills. To much. Too Soon.
I hold the earphones up to my senses and twirl my fingers round and round the chord. I think of winds and guitars echoing over a warm summer sky as I dance, fresh, clean in the evening dusk. A free indulgence.
I’m curled up in a big plush chair and enjoying the presence of solitude. I don’t fit in here. My IPOD is muffing my ears to the sound of outside existence. I feel more beautiful here, more alive. I feel so, less alone. I could do this, like it was my second fulltime job. Sit in a coffee shop of the non commercial kind that is. There’s a man in the corner with rimmed glasses writing in a chocolate leather bound journal. His phone rings every third sip. Silently he talks, hangs up, and mumbles something about brainstorming. The woman to my left is sitting behind a mound of medical books. She’s lost in study and talking to herself. The man behind me is dressed in day attire. I’m resisting the urge to loosen his tie for him. The couple in the corner is discussing the film that plunges one into a world demonstrating quantum uncertainty. I know this film. It’s boring and captivating processing the neurological process and perpetual shifts.
My eyes are stinging while I eavesdrop on conversations questioning how crushed together we sit and so far removed.
I calm down rolling steamed milk over the roof of my mouth, listen to the sounds of Ana Nalick, up the volume and escape back to the story I am going to sell. Tomorrow. It’s hot in here. I take off my top shirt in a Herbal Essence way. Inside: sunshine, track lighting, sweet smells, bright colors. Outside: Cheap food disguised as healthy, sex sells shops, Paris design stores, and church. It’s Middle America out there. It’s me.
Life-giving instead of life-draining. They all look that way to me, too.
