At The Coffee Shop

At my favorite coffee house, an older couple was sitting on a bench in the corner, she on the inside, having a coffee or tea and something to eat. They had been enjoying, I hope, a time of quiet despite all the hectic of the holidays, although they’ve been married long enough they probably don’t need more quiet moments together, this diversion being a date night on a Friday morning, perhaps before going to visit the doctor or a shut-in friend.

While the shop is warm and busy and noisy, full of people engrossed with each other, this couple has to be careful moving about because the floor is a bit uneven. We are in an old building and it is coming apart mostly because of age and traffic. The place can be packed full at times! The vibrance of a coffee house, a cozy, gabby place, is not used to the quiet love, the mature love, the aged love, I see in the corner, away from the maelstrom of busy lives.

I have to move out of the way so she can get by me. The tables and chairs are invitingly close which makes for a narrow lane for her to navigate, and she almost forgets her cane. She is a pleasant person, as are most people, of course, when you stand or move out of their way, or smile at them. She has to go slow, ever careful with the cane and cautious of table legs and human legs and back packs and purse straps and things that stick out in the way that might elude her eyesight. She doesn’t want to plod. It’s an indignity to act old, to walk old, in public. We respond to her chance to act normal and maybe in my zeal to be sure she is safe I also rob her of her independence. Perhaps I signal exactly what she doesn’t want emphasized.

Her husband, quite a bit more mobile, waits at the counter. He knows she’ll be along soon enough. They know each other down to the last atom. Neither takes the other for granted but instead gives room to exercise movement in this large world. We should all be so lucky to have a companion in our later years who’ll go out for coffee or an errand or just be glad to say “Hello” and greet us with a smile.

It has become easy to be superficial. There is a pressure nowadays of being polite only because we have to be and then only minimally. Sort of a passive/aggressive romanticism?

Encounters like this I think go a long ways to making us more than barely civil. As I roam around town I sometimes see genuine acts of kindness and I would hope that we are all willing and able to look after each other if only in the moment.

The husband left a tip at the table. Like many modern small food shops you pay a full price at the counter and then a tip in the tip jar, in this case a water pitcher. He left a tip of a bill and a pile of change as if he has riffled his pockets to give as much as he could. It was a polite, old-fashioned way of complimenting the business.

They’re gone soon enough. I hoped they have a good day. I was glad to have witnessed this small proof the world has not gone entirely crazy.
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