I decided to change my tack and bring myself to work for once.
When I got in yesterday, Sheena told me her goal for the day was to sell 5 Southwest burgers and asked me what my goal was. I told her I needed some time to think about it, because I'd never thought about setting a daily goal for myself at work. I never declared my goal to her, but it was: have a conversation, no matter how short or insignificant, with every table I serve today.
My last table of the day was a one-top, a guy about my age, maybe a little older, with long eyelashes and eyes the color of maple syrup. He sat down at the first table, in no hurry whatsoever, with a composition notebook and a few stapled sheets of typed paragraphs. He ordered a beer.
I asked him what he was working on and it turns out he was writing a speech about living in the present, with slight detours into Buddhism, enlightenment, Cartesian dualism, references to psychology and philosophy and theology... I read it over, asked some questions and gave him a few suggestions, and then he asked, "Are you busy later?"
After I got off work we walked around downtown for awhile. He's from Chicago and he couldn't get enough of the small-town factor. I have to admit I worked it a little, exchanging words with everyone I knew or had met at some point in the past three weeks... Having lived in a small town for a good chunk of my life, I have what I think is a healthy skepticism for small towns and their politics, but I see where he's coming from. I love all the same things about this place.
All that existential talk on such a warm day exhausted me -- I'm out of habit. But he came to me with a reminder that the past and the future don't really exist right now, and left me with a reminder to breathe. "Not just through your mouth," he said to me on the shaded stones under the Overlook, "but through your nose, so your brain gets the oxygen."
After all these years, you'd think I could remember on my own.
When I got in yesterday, Sheena told me her goal for the day was to sell 5 Southwest burgers and asked me what my goal was. I told her I needed some time to think about it, because I'd never thought about setting a daily goal for myself at work. I never declared my goal to her, but it was: have a conversation, no matter how short or insignificant, with every table I serve today.
My last table of the day was a one-top, a guy about my age, maybe a little older, with long eyelashes and eyes the color of maple syrup. He sat down at the first table, in no hurry whatsoever, with a composition notebook and a few stapled sheets of typed paragraphs. He ordered a beer.
I asked him what he was working on and it turns out he was writing a speech about living in the present, with slight detours into Buddhism, enlightenment, Cartesian dualism, references to psychology and philosophy and theology... I read it over, asked some questions and gave him a few suggestions, and then he asked, "Are you busy later?"
After I got off work we walked around downtown for awhile. He's from Chicago and he couldn't get enough of the small-town factor. I have to admit I worked it a little, exchanging words with everyone I knew or had met at some point in the past three weeks... Having lived in a small town for a good chunk of my life, I have what I think is a healthy skepticism for small towns and their politics, but I see where he's coming from. I love all the same things about this place.
All that existential talk on such a warm day exhausted me -- I'm out of habit. But he came to me with a reminder that the past and the future don't really exist right now, and left me with a reminder to breathe. "Not just through your mouth," he said to me on the shaded stones under the Overlook, "but through your nose, so your brain gets the oxygen."
After all these years, you'd think I could remember on my own.
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