Cafe Strangers

I’m a creature of comfort. I find the thought of drawing a hot bath and curling up with a good book infinitely rewarding. In actuality, I’m a little to antsy to be satisfied. On the other hand, venturing out into the great big world on a cold night seems more than daunting. I feel like I’m being pulled out of my womb a few months too soon. But I usually end up happy for having made the venture. 

So, though I had planned to write from my couch tonight, I decided to take my laptop to a coffee shop. You would think that in the semi-burbs we would have at least a decent one, but I’ve had to make do with the Starbucks nestled inside a Barnes and Nobles. 

There is a man across from me who is intermittently snoozing and eating nuts. In addition to him, there are several other people here, most of whom are completely not within my demographic. Children and parents, high school students, and a few elderly patrons. The type of people I don’t have as friends not because of who they are as individuals, rather that I don’t come into contact with them in my every day life. They are the truly anonymous and exactly who I hoped to encounter by venturing out. Because they are unlike me in lifestyle, one could say they are outside my comfort zone. Having come back from India only recently, one might find the fact I come to a café to be with those foreign to me, slightly amusing. But I dare say that our relative closeness is the reason why our differences seem so stark.

As a writer, pushing out of my comfort zone -- even in such subtle ways -- allows me learn. As a person, I develop an energetic kinship with those I’m unbounded to, and I grow. In doing so, I’m reminded that we are more similar than we are different, regardless of what our exteriors may say.

The man across from me has woken from his snoring reverie to take a call from his mother. Next to him two men pause in their conversation, ruminating on what else there is to say. At a table nearby, a woman sits along, paging through a magazine, looking up occasionally to take in her fellow patrons. I think about their stories. How we differ. And how we connect.