I tried to be all writerly and go to a coffee shop for the afternoon.
Well, it wasn’t e
xactly a coffee shop, although people do go there for the coffee, but since I’m not a coffee drinker, I don’t care about that, so I go for the Fennel Salad instead.
And the old wooden vegetable bins hanging on the wall that I can’t stop staring at, wondering if I can buy.
Anyway, I wanted to work. I did hope for that. But I made a big mistake. I sat close to other human beings.
You can probably guess what happened next. Some call it “eavesdropping.” I, being a writer and all, prefer to call it something else:
“Research.”
Three women and a baby were sitting next to me at first. I was able to ignore them for about 34 seconds, until I heard one of them say,
….well I’ve been to their church, and it just seems so judgmental to me. The grace is missing…it’s all judgment.
As if I’m going to be able to ignore that.
I never could figure out exactly what church, or even what specific denomination they were talking about, although as the conversation progressed, it seemed the “they” who were the subject homeschooled and dressed rather Dugger-like, so I figured it might be some sort of independent fundamentalist group.
After they ordered some cupcakes, they left, so I thought I was free and clear, that the .doc in front of me would finally get the attention it deserved until…
A middle-aged man and woman sat down. They asked if they could run a cord for their laptop across my path, I said sure, they hooked it up, sat down, then opened up the computer to study images – I could see clearly because I was at a pub-height table behind them – of an exhibition of photographs of female impersonators - that it seems one of them had either created or was an agent for or was curating - and discussing the artistry of each photograph..
..as if I’m going to be able to ignore that.
It was interesting hour or so I spent there, nibbling at my salad, gazing at the words on my screen, and listening. It afforded me a microcosm of what I find so interesting about Birmingham: the juxtaposition of Very Big Churches which is an expression of a natural, pervasive religiosity, and an artistic spirit.
You do remember that Walker Percy was born here, don’t you?
So no, I didn’t get any work done.
But on the other hand, maybe I did.
For some reason, a police officer on horseback was patrolling 2nd Avenue in downtown Birmingham on a Tuesday afternoon.
I need to try fennel salad sometime. Coffee shops — oy, it doesn’t matter where you go, people keep happening.
And I thought Tampa was weird. You should come down here and eavesdrop.
Don’t tempt me. I am going to post an eavesdrop on mine one day. I am going to sit where the snobs here sit and well most of it will be about real estate and the lack thereof or some ditzy topic.
Naughty Amy…. you make me laugh. Your post today really made me laugh. With the lack of the listening for the customer service and the stupidity of my day, I needed it.
The nice part of it is I am not in debt like many here. huh!
I’ve always longed to be able to head to any number of local coffee shops to write, but there is no way I cannot people-watch and eavesdrop.
Better to stay home…better for my writing, better for my waistline, better for my wallet…better all around.
Believe me, working within ten feet of my refrigerator is distraction enough…
I used to do a lot of writing in a coffee shop in Salt Lake City (if that doesn’t sound like an oxymoron, I’m not sure what does, but I am a coffee-drinker, and theirs was the best I’ve ever had anywhere). Somehow the times I went were always quiet, and I could sit there by the window with the snow falling outside and do my work — I’m helped by being outside my familiar environment, so it was perfect.
But I’m an awful eavesdropper. You do not want to be sitting next to me in a restaurant, not if you have something personal and dramatic that you just can’t keep to yourself . . .
I couldn’t have ignored them either. Great descriptions!
Have tried to go “out” to write. It just doesn’t work. Or rather, I don’t “work”.
It is worth it for the interesting things that happen.
(May I humbly direct you to my latest blog post and what happened at the cemetery?)
I’m sorry, but photographs of men impersonating women is not art.
I’m using your phrase “as if I am going to be able to ignore that” up here between the Blue Mountains and the Appalachians as my brother shows us the advantages of moving from the crime laced city to here in his inexpensive gated community with fitness center, gazebo with fish pond, library with leather chairs and pot luck dinners in the club house etc… AND mountains out the kitchen window….”as if I am going to be able to ignore that”. The money advantage as one sells on the NY harbor and buys here was great enough…but this AM we had delicious chipped beef on toast in a breakfast place filled with people who probably have Patty Loveless’s “Mountain Soul” album…and I murmured at breakfast….”as if I am going to be able to ignore that.” And there is an art gallery in town and a college while currently I am being defrauded by an art gallery in a swanky NJ town and by another place in NY in this bad economy…that’s aside from my burglar experience of two weeks ago…a thief for whom I now pray each day despite our street fight….New Testament: “do not make a mistake…the thief… shall not possess the kingdom of God”. But is it wrong to want a semi retirement without street fights?
Here a pistol carry permit is as easy to get as a dog license…..but you don’t need one here because there is no crime….”as if I am going to be able to ignore that.”
Your use of the phrase was funnier because there is a feminine curiosity note the way you used it and if you one day do a book compiling your blogs, the above must…must… be in it…but for many of us, the phrase also helps decisiveness in big decisions. But your above piece is Mark Twain level and thanks for it filtering through my being in both ways in this sad city time of late. I’ve had it with the danger…both outside me and inside me as I react to it.
I believe that by next year, God willing….we will be mountain people…of a sort.
David,
I think Amy was not approving but being curious about the bizarre and how could it fit into art. The Bible in I Kings chapter one, verses 1-4 draws all of us with a similar curiosity. Here is the King James version which makes it even more bizarre with its use of “gat”…..
” Now king David was old [and] stricken in years; and they covered him with clothes, but he gat no heat. Wherefore his servants said unto him, Let there be sought for my lord the king a young virgin: and let her stand before the king, and let her cherish him, and let her lie in thy bosom, that my lord the king may get heat. So they sought for a fair damsel throughout all the coasts of Israel, and found Abishag a Shunammite, and brought her to the king. And the damsel [was] very fair, and cherished the king, and ministered to him: but the king knew her not.”
It appeals to our curiosity but what it means…I haven’t a clue…nor would I recommend it to seniors who can easily get a down comforter at Macy’s.
I LOVE trying to write in coffee shops. Sometimes I get an awful lot of really good work done and other times I get an awful lot of really good ideas, mostly for characters and scenes in my fiction series.
I rented a cottage for a week on Holy Island a couple of years ago, hoping to get some work done on a book I’m supposed to be writing about religious feminism – couldn’t write a thing all week. I loved the atmosphere, the peacefulness, and got a lot of reading and thinking done. But every time I sat down to actually write something, it came out all sappy and maudlin.
Sally, if you ever get to Portland, Oregon you simply can’t leave without going to Stumptown for coffee – there’s one down town just a block or two from Powell’s City of Books.
Kamilla
I do find that getting out helps (with writing, I mean) — at home I just fritter and clean house obsessively, which I would not normally do. And then my default setting is that I’m going to be interrupted, so I’ve gotten into the habit of not even thinking about working steadily. And then I’m lazy.
A change of scenery doesn’t help the sloth, but it does help otherwise. Coffee shops are good. There’s one within walking distance of my house, but bizarrely enough, I never go there. I do sometimes go to one in the nearby-ish college town where my husband works. My mother has a guesthouse over her garage which is very, very good — peaceful, pretty trees outside the windows, etc — but it’s ten hours from where I live, and I can’t go all that way to NOT visit my mother (“Hi, Mom, I’ll be locking the door now. It’ll be just like I’m fourteen again. Bye.”).
To me, being somewhere where I’m something of an alien, even in a small way, is a near-requirement. I think that awareness of being on the outside (as in eavesdropping, for example), or otherwise not at home in a setting, does actually drive a lot of writing for a lot of people — not everyone, obviously, but I do hear people besides me say things like this. Even if it’s not writing as in, pen on paper and words to keep, but writing in your head or writing that’s not getting it right yet, that still counts. Say I.
Thank you for the reminder about Walker Percy. I’ve had him on my wishlist for the longest time. This connection will serve as my tipping point — I’ll go and check this minute whether any of his essays (or fiction) are available for the Kindle.