The flowering of life

The world is opening up to me. It’s opening its wide, bleary eyes and staring at me right in the face, smiling that cheeky grin I never knew existed. I am at the pivotal point, the fulcrum of my life, and it can carry on going one way or I can move forwards and tip the scales. And tip them I will.

At the time of writing I’m say in Cafe Nero watching the world go by. It’s entertaining; it helps me forget that I’m writing boring articles of meaningless drivel that somehow are passed off as good. There is some cute cosmopolitan woman in front of me (and by in front I mean a few tables in front). She hasn’t seemed to notice me yet and in all probability doesn’t know that I’m blogging about her. But that’s the beauty of life. It’s unknown and secretive and as much as I do know tend to keep secret it is very easy to keep little things hidden, to keep certain little thoughts in your mind, letting them stay as thoughts forever.

There is an old couple to the north-east of me; an old man with slowly disappearing white hair and a woman with equally white hair but thick and full. I cannot hear their conversation and I’m going to assume they are married but for all intents and purposes they were having a small argument before, the way old people do with their disapproving looks at each other and their finger pointing. It was probably nothing really because even though I do not know them and even though I cannot hear their conversation I know they must love each other very much. I know that they must have gazed at each other across a dance-floor for hours before tentatively taking up the courage to make their first moves, cautious and refined. I know that the man must have taken it upon himself to ask the woman for a dance and I know that she must have blushed a shade of red that seems impossible now, their skin a white shade of pale. I know that he must have taken her hand and that they must have waltzed slowly across the floor, their heartbeats slowly intertwining just like their hands, their senses starting to notice the smallest of things; the scent of her perfume, the whorls and lines in his hands, the way she held herself, upright and poised like a professional dancer.

This is the beauty of people watching. You can learn so much from so little. It is one of the reasons I come to work in Cafe Nero. Not only because the unwelcome distraction of the internet (more specifically Facebook) is banished but because I can sit and the world can pass me by and I can know that people are doing things with their lives
That hope and love and glory still exist.
That people still have conversations.
That people can still be kind.

It’s like a patchwork quilt of different emotions, all sewed together as one, all different colours, all with different patterns, all meaning different things.

A young father has just sat down to the south-east of me. It is cute. He is here with a child who I will assume is his daughter and it has filled me with a sense of the beauty of life. It also has sparked the maternal instincts that I have always had but have been lacking recently. At first I thought that he didn’t look like he wanted to be here but as he sat down with his drink and placed his child in the high-chair it struck me that he has an obligation to fill,, whether he likes it or not and after a while of settling down into my observations of him I have come to notice that as much as it is hard work he gets a sense of enjoyment from being a father. I can sense that he has had a few sleepless nights recently but that he does not mind and that he is relatively happy with the current situation as it stands. He reminds me of the man with the burnt hands in Jon McGregor’s novel If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things. The man with the burnt hands is a single father who damaged his hands beyond repair trying to save his wife from a burning building. He is getting older and cannot be the father he truly wants to be due to his health. I do not get the sense that this father behind me is an only father but I do get the sense that he is trying to be everything he can be for his child and that he would make an excellent single parent.

His child is young and easily distractable, sitting in a wooden chair, attempting to feed herself crisps and drink juice through a straw. Life is awaiting her to explore it and the actions of others seem more interesting than the food being waved in front of her face. The child-like expressions of the people who have caught a glimpse of this small child watching them is testament to the fact that I think she will grow up to be a good child, that and the fact that her father is trying to instil upon her correct manners, like eating with your mouth closed a and other such things.

The old woman went off to do something or other in town and has returned with a look of joy on her face, a young girl at her heels, possible a relative or friend, someone who whilst young and by no-means the epitome of a “good girl” (her jeans and boots giving her a thoroughly modern image) seems to be someone makes this couple smile, someone who can interact with the older generations despite their youth and the older generations seeming dislike of the youth.

My battery on my laptop is going to run out soon and so I must finish off for now and sign off. I am going to purchase sparkling water and a chocolate brownie and then do some well deserved reading.

xx