kindness of strangers
writing hardily
Today I was writing in a cafe and when I pulled out my laptop to transcribe out of a messy notebook the woman next to me got up and slid between our tables, saying something over her shoulder under her breath. “I’ve just come from the office…” I was wondering why she would feel so insecure that she would need to explain her movements to a stranger when it sank in – as she sank in, to the bench seat opposite – what it was that she had said: “Ich komme gerade vom Büro, I’ve just come out of the office and I don’t want people doing their office work around me.” The funny thing was she was clutching her mobile phone like it was a huge reefer she was about to lift on the ball of the hand to her lips, and the flickering of her screen had caught my eye and momentarily bothered me, before I caught myself and realised how insane it was to resent someone for poring over their screen while I pored over mine. She was staring at me across the room, I raised my shoulders and spread my hands. “Was, denn?” She called the waitress over and repeated her complaint in the exact same words: “I’ve just come out of the office and I don’t want people doing their office work around me.” Around the flower arrangement she pointed me out. The waitress shrugged helplessly, her face relapsing from an attempt at sympathy into a foolish smirk. What could she say? I let go the sward of ideas I had built in the air as they demolished themselves and dissolved in the face of such tiny, such concerted ill-will, and took out my notebook again and tried to let my gaze fall into the precise point of the middle distance where happiness and contemplation and, it sometimes seems, poetry lie thick on the chilly air like leaves on the ice. I told myself this place – a “literary cafe” attached to a bookshop – would not exist if not for writers like me and took up my pen again and foraged on.
14 comments on “writing hardily”
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I was working on one of my grants while between bands at Black Bear Lodge; laptop on table, but as dim as I could get the screen in an attempt to not distract other patrons. A woman leaned forward and asked if I would like any help, “Are you writing an arts grant?” She asked. “What kind of performer are you?” I was sad to have no witty repartee to explain how I feel about performing science to an empty house each day.
Oh, Tams, it’s gotta feel pretty good that random strangers at gigs offer their services to help you get paid! Yes that bridge from artist to scientist… a trembling slack rope, and I admire the way you juggle the hollahs as you walk it.
To turn a slightly bitter remark into something useful as food for thought is a kind of alchemy that allows for civilization rather than tearing at one another’s pharynx. Thanks Cathoel for sharing from your life.
Thank you, James. You have such a kind and responsive, sensitive way of seeing, it is a great pleasure indeed to share some thoughts with you.
Good for you girl…..so glad you didn’t get up and leave.
Thanks, Lesley, I wanted to! Her disdain really hurt me. You know when you’re open and creative and in the flow, and you have no defences.
Ah, Cathoel… I love your one-page novel.
Thank you, Rhyll.
I love the way you write the scenes, Cathoel, Although the image in my head may be nothing like the place you were, that place feels real and tangible. Like I could pan around it with the camera of my mind, and see the people’s faces.
Thank you, Tams, that is very gratifying to hear and I appreciate your saying so. Thanksx
The gumshoe as protective alter ego for poets in public. I like it!
I would have told her I was a private investigator and on her case.
How sad that a laptop and notebook meant onerous work to her – it is one of the ways that you make so many of us happy, sharing your ‘office work’. One sniffy woman can’t compare to all of us who love you!
You are known for your cariness!