I wish I could say I'd been writing much lately. Instead, I've been spray-painting paper frames for my classroom and scouring thrift stores for a couch that is not quite as smelly as it is cheap. Thank goodness for this little blog, exerting just enough pressure on me to make me at least return to what I've written and find something to post here. This is a little ode to Austin. I'm not sure why it shifts into second person halfway through.
7.2.05 Jo's Coffee, South Congress Street, Austin, Texas
I don’t know whether a magical place is a magical place, objectively and universally, or if different places are magical to different people—maybe meeting a town is like meeting a person; sometimes you just click. In any case, I love clicking with a town. I love the small, serendipitous things that happen; they seem to be the way the town tells you, “I’m glad you’re here.” This happened for me in Berkeley a bit (finding a job three seconds after arriving), and in Santa Fe once (a view from the newsstand, with silent movies flickering on the second-story shutters, peace and contentment coming out of nowhere like a mist), and certainly on our most recent and most indulgent trip to Drake Bay (even the getting there--a plane, a jeep and two boats--was like an arm around my shoulders, assuring me that I would never be bored here).
This ethereal warm welcome happens most regularly for me here in Austin. Sometimes the gesture is elaborate—as it was last spring, when we were welcomed to town by Jo’s Easter Pet Parade, specially designed to amuse the hell out of us, perfectly suited to our senses of humor and of wonder, with drum major and a sousaphone player in musty old thrift-store uniforms leading a bedraggled-but-proud line of two dozen or so costumed pets and their inordinately proud and unselfconscious owners.
More often, as this morning, the welcome is nothing more than a very friendly and instantly warm conversation with a stranger—where he parks his baby right next to you and walks to the counter to get napkins (this makes you feel awfully good—it tells you that in this place, you’re not suspect or freakish, but kind and decent; the world at large and you agree about your character, here—it’s the ultimate gesture of a stranger’s trust in your goodness). This, after your eyes met and you gave your standard smile—you imagine that it’s shy- but-sufficiently-friendly, but you’ve never seen what it actually looks like—and he replies with a beam and a “how’s it going?” that is actually, astonishingly, followed by a pause indicating that he hopes for a real answer. You remind yourself that you have to get out of the habit of replacing “hey” with a “how’s it going,” that lacks this pause and eye contact. So he parks the baby, asking your indulgence, which you gladly give and feel very friendly for doing so graciously. You make lame-but-nice comments about the baby, he asks you what you’re reading; just as he’s spooning applesauce into the baby’s mouth, his order is called out and set on the counter; you offer to get it for him. He refuses, but does a double take and introduces himself, offering a hand to shake. This is a gesture that I love and that I need to master—the gesture that tells a person she has moved beyond small talk and into genuine fondness, that she is the kind of person you’d like to know. Giving your name like a gift to some stranger, pulling them a little bit closer to you, sticking out your hand to be shaken. It’s powerful, perhaps because it is the first risk in polite conversation between strangers: that hand could be refused, one’s name withheld. Maybe your offer to get the latte was the first risk, maybe that’s why it struck him and prompted the introduction. Either way, after that point, you feel comfortable going back to reading instead of chatting, knowing that you no longer need to be polite, only authentic—speaking when you have something worth saying, or asking questions that stem from genuine curiosity.
Soon, with applesauce finished, latte fetched, stroller packed, Tobin & son were gone. Nothing terribly profound, just Austin saying, “good morning, I’m glad you’re here—” which is profound enough, really.
This ethereal warm welcome happens most regularly for me here in Austin. Sometimes the gesture is elaborate—as it was last spring, when we were welcomed to town by Jo’s Easter Pet Parade, specially designed to amuse the hell out of us, perfectly suited to our senses of humor and of wonder, with drum major and a sousaphone player in musty old thrift-store uniforms leading a bedraggled-but-proud line of two dozen or so costumed pets and their inordinately proud and unselfconscious owners.
More often, as this morning, the welcome is nothing more than a very friendly and instantly warm conversation with a stranger—where he parks his baby right next to you and walks to the counter to get napkins (this makes you feel awfully good—it tells you that in this place, you’re not suspect or freakish, but kind and decent; the world at large and you agree about your character, here—it’s the ultimate gesture of a stranger’s trust in your goodness). This, after your eyes met and you gave your standard smile—you imagine that it’s shy- but-sufficiently-friendly, but you’ve never seen what it actually looks like—and he replies with a beam and a “how’s it going?” that is actually, astonishingly, followed by a pause indicating that he hopes for a real answer. You remind yourself that you have to get out of the habit of replacing “hey” with a “how’s it going,” that lacks this pause and eye contact. So he parks the baby, asking your indulgence, which you gladly give and feel very friendly for doing so graciously. You make lame-but-nice comments about the baby, he asks you what you’re reading; just as he’s spooning applesauce into the baby’s mouth, his order is called out and set on the counter; you offer to get it for him. He refuses, but does a double take and introduces himself, offering a hand to shake. This is a gesture that I love and that I need to master—the gesture that tells a person she has moved beyond small talk and into genuine fondness, that she is the kind of person you’d like to know. Giving your name like a gift to some stranger, pulling them a little bit closer to you, sticking out your hand to be shaken. It’s powerful, perhaps because it is the first risk in polite conversation between strangers: that hand could be refused, one’s name withheld. Maybe your offer to get the latte was the first risk, maybe that’s why it struck him and prompted the introduction. Either way, after that point, you feel comfortable going back to reading instead of chatting, knowing that you no longer need to be polite, only authentic—speaking when you have something worth saying, or asking questions that stem from genuine curiosity.
Soon, with applesauce finished, latte fetched, stroller packed, Tobin & son were gone. Nothing terribly profound, just Austin saying, “good morning, I’m glad you’re here—” which is profound enough, really.
Thanks, Freetaco, for this photo of the exact spot I'm talking about (it was at www.flickr.com). I was sitting at the spot on the
left.
