To work, to sleep, to write...

I find myself in Dallas tonight. I have a million things to do, some fun code to write, a class to get ready for, and a good book to read to help me get plenty of sleep. Yet instead of being stressed about what I cannot get done or happy with what I have gotten done, I am consumed with an email. It should have taken about 5 minutes to respond, or not to respond, and yet it took the energy out of the evening.

I was on the verge of not being overly productive due to a long disjointed travel day. So not accomplishing too much was not a surprise. But an email should not be the cause of the ruining of any one's day. Just to be clear, the email did not come from anyone reading this blog!

My dilemma is whether to spend 5 minutes zipping off a curt reply or 30 minutes crafting an appropriate answer. I may not think my 5 minute response is curt, but all too often when I want to express some emotion I do not usually express the quick answer does not work. So my 5 minute answer turns into a 30 minute analysis, "am I right", "are they wrong", "are we both right", and then figuring out how to write a response that is appropriate, tactful, clear, and, by the way, looks like it took 5 minutes. It is at the moment of realizing that 30 minutes has gone by and the response is no better than the tactless bit of froth I started with that I throw it away or put it in my draft emails to never see the light of day. Sometimes I actually do come up with an appropriate response but that is usually due to seeing whatever the issue is in the light of day and not while sitting alone in a hotel room waiting for sleep to come upon me.

The picture was not from Dallas. It was from home. In refocusing my mind, I thought I would start with a nice picture. My choices were the crashing waves of my beach (see note) or the serene beach with the mountains and the pier in the distance. So I decided to begin tonight's entry with the roar and foam and end with a more serene perspecitve, the view of my town from the beach (see note).

Note 1: In California we all own the beach - usually they say the state owns it but I prefer my perspective!
Note 2: In my town, I do own a piece of property, it is a part of the city, therefore I own a part of the city, therefore it is my town - to a degree.

More serious reflections will follow soon, just as soon as I deal with that email...

I was the stranger - Coffee Shops part 3...

Sitting at my table in the back of the coffee shop, a young woman wheeled her double stroller up to a table, facing me just about 5 feet from where I was working. She had three kids with her, the oldest a boy of 4 or 5, stood by the stroller looking at me. The next younger one sat in the stroller looking around. The mom took the third child into the restroom after giving the boy a stern warning, "Don't speak with strangers."

The boy continued to stare at me as I worked away on my computer. Not too long ago, I would have had an interchange with him, "Are you at such-and-such school?", "Are you too big for the stroller now?", etc. But not wanting to get the boy in trouble I held my tongue, he continued to stare.

Mom came out of the restroom bending down nicely and asking, "Did you speak with any strangers?" He shook his head, "No". But as she said it she glanced over at me as if to say, "you are the stranger I was referring to". I politely said that he was very good and did not say anything. She turned and gave me an awkward stare. She did not respond. She did not speak with strangers. It took a moment for her reaction to sink in to my emotions.

I think, I hope, the look was one of confusion. I had put her in an impossible position. If she spoke with my she violated her own fear or countered the lesson she was trying to teach her son. If she engaged in conversation she was a hypocrite. If she ignored me she was consistent, if perhaps rude. But it could be that she was not confused, and this is the scariest option of all. She assessed the situation and determined that I, the stranger, was a threat. While I did need a haircut, I don't believe I was too seedy looking, so her reaction was deeper, more rational, more disturbing. Her calculated look was one of, "And, why would you speak to me?"

Are the days of polite civility from protecting parents gone. Traded for silence. Will I never be able to say, "So cute!", "How old?", or "Wow, that is a cool toy!" again without worrying whether I am violating a boundary erected to fend off the evil ones. Yes, unfortunately there are evil ones.

But just to put her at ease, I did not return the stares of her son and made no comment on her glare. My hope is that her son will somehow not learn the lesson of rudeness but instead transcend the obvious role modelling of his mother. And indeed may he also learn the art of being politely paranoid.

Such is life as the stranger...

Coffee shops part 2...

I work in coffee shops. No not pouring coffee, steaming milk, calling out, "No foam, extra hot, double shot, non fat latte for George". No, I sit at my computer thinking or writing or visualizing some aspect of project management or software or both.

I have often wondered what folks do, sitting at their computers, in coffee shops. At "my" local coffee shop I have a table. They don't reserve it for me but more often than not it is there for me. I can sit and work amidst the buzz of talk and the grind of ice in blenders and the occasional - too loud - siren of some machine making some extra hot drink. The music, just the right volume, tempers the other sounds and conversations and helps them blend into the background.

Back to working at the coffee shop... Some of the people working are serious. Probably, on chapter 43 of that great American novel. Others are curious and engage the old guys in conversation providing a new ear to old stories. I will have to capture some of those stories, give a new venue to them. I have thought of putting some books I have worked on and in which my name is referenced on the shelves of the shop but that would look a little too egocentric. But when I do write that great American novel I will get it on the shelves.

One of my coffee shop friends, J for now, is working on a screenplay. He is intense but we always have a nice conversation whenever I break his concentration. Occasionally we talk about the latest bite he has gotten, seldom about the frustrations of the quest for the right connection. The frustrations are understood. Usually, I ask if he has had any good fishing and he asks me about any more Albanian travels. Someday his screenplay will be picked up and I will buy him a cup of coffee. And someday I will go back to Albania and he will ask to see the pictures.

The other day I heard a young woman behind me discussing her work with Third Culture Kids. That is a rather esoteric topic that I knew a little about. Not too esoteric a topic if you are like this young woman - a missionary kid who is raised in country A by parents from countries B and C going to college in country D trying to figure out who they are and why no one else gets it. But to sit in a coffee shop in my town to hear the reference was fairly random so I engaged in a brief conversation. She had completed a short documentary on the topic. As a budding photo journalist I noticed that she took the time to stop and engage the old guys in a conversation, sharing her recent success and hearing their story. In this case, I was also probably one of the old guys she chatted with that she might recount to a friend later in the day. Or perhaps there are so many of these random, disconnected conversations today that they just filter into the pool of coffee shop images and encounters.

So for now the time-clock indicates that I must be off to the office, where the coffee is fresh and the sounds of the grinders will provide that bit of inspiration needed.

JMP