Wednesday, October 19, 2011

When Are You Alone?

It's the closest thing to being in monastery that I can think of - it's my hole-in-the-wall coffee shop.  Music drizzles over the walls and blends magnificently alongside the coffee-machine-purr.  The window opens onto a vista of the street - the bustle of downtown Fredericton on a clear Wednesday night...before the rain starts to pound down.  I'll fall asleep to the drone of my 'white-noise' oscillating fan that my grandmother K bought for me 10 years ago when I was off to Mexico for two weeks - helps me each night to unwind and rest.  It was a trip to Mexico - off to experience working in the Third world.  At the time I was smitten with a gal from Nova Scotia.  When I got back from the trip I asked her on our first date.  She is married with children now - met her husband in a chemistry lab at university.  "I'm such a nerd!" she would later remark with a poke-fun-at-me laugh.  


Back to my hole-in-the-wall coffee shop...my monastery.  There are distractions.  I gawk at the interesting people that unfold before me - their stories.  I'm particularly drawn by the love stories and friendships I see.  I think of the friends and family I am missing.  I purpose to feel this without dulling the pain...it is difficult.  


I rush to the next 'fix' - scramble to the next conversation, checkup on my Twitter and Facebook - see if anyone is reacting to my presence on the digital biosphere.  I see the 'in-love' couple a few tables over.  Touch.  They hold hands in an un-selfconscious way.  Relaxed.  


I glance over to the other couple - they are stumbling toward a strand of conversation that will get them through the next half hour...


And the guy from my hometown who just pulled up a seat on the cold concrete outside.  


The music pulses on, the coffee machines whirr, the people smile, they walk, they sit, they touch, they sing...


And an agony writhes in the city, in the heart of us all...we long for togetherness and harmony.  And we taste the pain of missing it.  


I guess every good thing comes to an end.  My monastery time is over.  I can't bear to go back to the ordinary - but I must.  Laundry must be done.  It is melodramatic perhaps, but I need to speak with gusto - laundry makes the world go round.  


For rare is it to find one who prefers wearing soiled clothes to clean ones. 


3 comments:

  1. Thank you so much for sharing that. Thank you, thank you , thank you!!

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  2. Deep! Certainly captures that aloneness it seems most of us live with.

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  3. Yes. One of my better moments of connection with the world. I long for an experience like this again!

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