A man and a woman sit down at the table beside mine at my favored cafe. Prickled by their presence (I’d purposely sat near the back corner of the place to focus on writing this post) I tried shutting out their conversation. Sometimes I want to listen, especially if they seem to be on an awkward first date or about to erupt in an argument unbridled by their public stance, but these two seemed to just be traveling partners, co-workers or colleagues talking of the flight they were catching next, and then talking incessantly of absolutely every stupid thing they could possibly think of to fill the silence, not leaving time for a single deep breath between them.
I doubted that they were married or even semi-attached – two people who can’t spend a few moments in silence together are usually two people not at all at ease around each other. It’s the couples who sit in unbothered silence, happy just to be next to each other, who are usually in it for the long haul.
The two people next to me couldn’t stop babbling. Even when the guy gets up to use the bathroom, the woman continues. I turn around with a quick dirty glance because she is still talking to herself when the bathroom door closes – she’s responding out loud to whatever she’s texting or doing on her phone. Noise for the sake of noise. I know people who have to live like that – well, who choose to live like that – and part of me always pities them. Their baseline of peace is in the noise and chaos – they probably don’t even noticed it. Whet they do notice, and what seems to upset them the most, is silence. Quiet.
Stillness.
How wonderfully different we all are, I think, with a little more forgiveness and kindness than the tone of this post would have you believe.
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