~8th July 2022~
I went to the café in the library today, it’s a little place on the first floor that usually plays jazz on the overhead speakers and has dimly lit corners where a multitude of intellectuals gather in solitude.
Locking my bike up outside and taking the steps inside, I placed my satchel down and ordered a coffee: caffe latte grande. The lady said that it would be brought over to me when completed and I returned to my armchair and began to unravel my working equipment before me.
‘Oh, you’re a… writer?’ Guessed the barista as she brought me the coffee.
‘Yes. Yes I am, I guess.’ I answered questionably and slowly as I had never been externally called a writer and so never thought myself as one. Merely a human who enjoys a certain art form.
‘Do you share?’ She asked.
‘Not my works in the moleskine. But I do publish finalised pieces every now and again.’ I said taking out my reporter’s pad and writing down my Instagram, YouTube and writer’s email.
We, in the time when the cafe was quiet, began to chat about her art as well as my work, what they mean to us and to society etc. The barista was a quiet melancholic woman of youngish years near to two decades. I began to believe that she was not the type of person to begin such a conversation and that her speaking to me was a mere daily resolution to become more prominent in society.
Once I had finished the coffee I ordered another and by this time a queue was forming and so the woman, to which I am sad to say I do know the name, departed herself to the inner quarters of the desk and began taking orders once more.
I ordered another coffee, medium this time as I suspected if I had another grande, my heart would implode. I sat back down and began writing in the various notebooks for the next hour devising ideas for short stories, videos and projects: including mainly the layout for “Colony”: a series of short stories I hope to be publishing next year.
Once the coffee was finished and the biscuits eaten, I packed my bag up, slung it over my shoulder and decided that I should go to the second hand bookshop down one of the alleyways to buy a book I was after since I had just finished reading Sartre in the cafe.
When I was perusing the unorganised shelves for the copy, I began to remember the barista and the interaction we had. It occurred to me that, like in most things, there was a lesson to this adventure. And most of all: a philosophy.
I began to write this down in a pocket book.
1) I decided that in whatever a person may do, be that laundry or book shopping, there is a lesson to be learned and possibly one that we may create ourselves. 2) Man is always at growth and it is through experience that we grow. 3) The only way that society can flourish is if a person takes care of themselves first.
Like reading, it is good to branch out and discover new things and genres. Many of them you may not enjoy, but the few you do; it is something learned and culture explored.
(c)T.J.Johnson2022