Writing Company

 

 

I dress today in newly found Goodwill clothing. A long denim skirt with Peruvian embroidered leather belt, a plaid ruffled blouse and a velvet beret. (Total of $12!!)  My notebook stuck in an old leather satchel. Purple sunglasses complete the look as I prepare to discover coffee houses in Seattle, Washington.  Starbucks was born in this city partly because of the cool wet weather. I take along my notebook to record the adventure I seek.

Staring at Eliot, Steinbeck, Faulkner, Parker, Joyce, Nabokov, Orwell, Kafka they are having a ball drinking wine and absinthe, smoking, wearing hats pulled low over slicked back foreheads, bundled in overcoats against the chill of sitting in an unheated pub. Dark rainy late afternoon somewhere in Dublin, Prague, Vienna.  Some engage in wild debate, some sip coffee absently, some read from an open book, some tell jokes, some grin at another woman, some grin at me.

They wear brown, steel, crème, ochre, sienna, most men in neckties, women in wool jackets, scarves, cloche hats. The café is dark, smoky, dimly lit by curtains and grime. But they are in the company of genius.

I sit on a stool at a small red Formica table against the wall. A woman in a pastel fleece, clutching a flowered Vera Bradley bag and a paper cup of coffee is reading her Nook, slumped so much I am sure she is asleep until she flicks the new page with a lazy finger. Large couples enters carrying heavy leather satchels, wearing business suits and one opens  a red spiral notebook and begins  talking loudly. More people enter all of them fat ordering Frappuccino’s and brownies. Where is the poetry?

Outside the sky is cobalt blue, and the trees are flaming scarlet and gold, a bite in the air, a zip in the step, the poetry is there not here.

I want to discover. There must be something here not just for that company of genius.

Two fat geezers enter in shorts, a red long tee shirt, bald, with big white sneakers, the other wearing a black cowboy hat, grey tee shirt and jeans. He lays down a pack of cards, and a backgammon board. They order coffee, bottles of water, large plastic cups filled with ice, two bagels with crème cheese, enter in their gift card numbers. Their voices rise in volume.  I find the poetry now.  It is out the door and I leave for the scarlet trees.