Going at your own pace seems wrong.
At least for me.
I’m sitting at a wooden table along a wall of windows. This cafe’s around the corner from where I live and coming here on Mondays has become sort of a weekly tradition. I got a coffee and a bacon-egg-and-cheese and I keep meaning to go get a refill but I’m sucked into what I’ve been working on. My laptop’s open on the table in front of me and my notebooks behind it.
It’s lunch-time now and I only know that because it’s crowded. When I first walked in, I was only the second person here. That silence was glorious. Now, at the table behind me, there’s a dad and two kids who are not thrilled about having to sit down and eat their food. In front of me, a toddler with pigtails is slapping the glass windowpane; perhaps in some bizarre attempt to communicate with the bumble bee on the other side. I’m smiling at that, actually. But it takes her mom a minute to notice, and the scolding tone of her response to her little window-slapper made my stomach drop.
So now I’m looking around at the frenetic pace of this room and realize I’ve got my right foot crossed under me, and it’s wedged between my left shin and the metal table legs. Turning to my right, my head tips and I blink. There’s an older woman at the table next to mine. When did she get here? She’s just sitting there with nothing in front of her but a notebook. Her graying hair is poking out of one of those mesh Kavu hats and, while she’s holding a pen, her other hand is in her lap. And she’s leaning back rather than hunching over whatever it is she’s working on.
This woman’s left leg’s crossed over her knee but it’s not bouncing or jittering. She’s not wearing headphones or fidgeting, either. The only thing moving seems to be the pen on the page. I can hear it scratching the paper. Or, well... I must be imagining that because it’s loud as hell in here and I’m wearing headphones. But, still.
Turning back to the array of stuff on the table in front of me, I close my laptop.
And then I grab my notebook and my pen.
Our Daily MAP Year Prompt
344/365
What's a reminder you got recently from someone who doesn't know they gave it to you?
onward.
For more on this daily column and The MAP Year Project, read the backstory.
Sign up to get it here.