This is why people linger. Sometimes a place asks you to stay, to not rush anywhere, that it’s warm, and there’s the tap dancing water, and the powder blue sky, and they had the second floor to themselves. Josie felt that if anyone else came up there she would drive them away, she would throw a knife. This was now their home.
Heroes of the Frontier, Dave Eggers
Upstairs, the counter area is still very much holiday bustling, dense with people small business Saturday shopping, come for their caffeine. So sardine packed when I arrived, I had to stand in the other room while waiting for Emma to make me her perfect Saturday morning cappuccino. Upon collecting her offering, I walked through the crowded main room, all the way to the back, unlatched the gate, and went downstairs … which (exhale) I found empty and alone as a secret, as it usually is on Saturday mornings. All old stone walls and tables perfect and patiently waiting for customers who either don’t know they exist, or give the latched gate too much respect, or are just content with the quite content-able upstairs. I drop anchor in my favorite booth, the third one to the right along the wall. Put in my earbuds and summon Keith Hines on KCSM, just coming on for his 6 a.m. shift from the Bay Area, to quiet the din of upstairs and the world at large. Plug in my laptop. Pull out my journal and the Dave Eggers book that I have fallen madly in love with since Thanksgiving plucking it from the full City Lights brown paper bag that sits like a treasure chest on my bookshelf. Take a picture, which is to say a prayer, in reverence, commemorating the blessed gift of a Saturday coffee shop morning in the good company of jazz, a perfect book, and the blank page. Slow draw that first glorious sip, which is to say Amen, feeling it warm all the way down ….
The Sunday morning lines at airport security weren’t too bad, I remember thinking.
Even though I made the rookie mistake of choosing the line with the young family strapped to the gills. Mom with a backpack on her back, baby strapped to her front. Dad, backpacks both front and back, diaper bag slung on his shoulder, pushing a young son in a stroller. Too early for coffee, I was pretty much on autopilot. I checked the time on my phone. Should still be good to get to my gate.
On the other side of the security line, as they all recombobulated, the Dad turned to the young son and handed him back a toy. Not their first rodeo, I remember thinking.
Made my way to the tram that takes you to the terminal. If the tram’s not already ready and waiting, I walk all the way to the front car, so I can be among the first ones off and hit the escalators, rather than swim with the masses. Despite being weighed down with so much cargo, the young family was a couple steps ahead of me.
Professionals, I thought.
When the tram arrives and the doors open, the son bolts from the stroller as if shot from a cannon. Dad calls after him once he gets the empty stroller into the car, “Over here!” At this the son, maybe three, stops and turns, and, suddenly magnetized, beelines to the bench at the front of the car. Hops up, legs and all, right in front of the big window that stares down the length of the track.
Glues his eyes as if he’s in a spaceship looking back at earth.
Even my uncaffeinated system cannot suppress a smile.
Couple seconds after the door closes …“Are we moving?” the boy asks rhetorically, as his body registers the rumble of the tram awakening to begin its straight line down the track.
And then, over the rumble .…
“Choo-choo …. choo-choo.”
Slowly at first as the tram picks up speed.
The boy’s voice isn’t “Too Early on a Sunday Morning” loud. And he’s not in “Hey Look At Me, Not the Baby,” mode.
He’s … conducting.
Chanting in his soft, room temperature voice, putting the perfect pause between the double-Choos.
Carrying the weight of their world, Mom sits down on the bench next to him. Smiles the smile of a mother watching her baby boy watch the world go zooming by. Dad, hands-free from the stroller, takes out his phone to grab a video of what I assume is his son’s first ‘train’ ride.
The whole scene unfolds in front of me like a flower from parched earth.
Two Sunday morning addled and saddled parents wanting to slow this train down and live in this moment forever.
And for a few luminous seconds, we all forget.
The weights on our backs.
Where we might be going next.
We’re just grateful passengers on his train.
In my enchantment my eyes dip down and notice something. The boy’s holding his left arm slightly behind him … resting his hand atop his toy … the one his father returned to him after security. I only now make out what it is …
… a shiny red train engine.
Of course it is.
And the thing is … he’s not squeezing it … not holding it tight at all. Just gently touching the top.
“Choo-choo.”
He’s the professional of the group …
… conducting in every sense of the word. … his entire being channeling pure, unadulterated imagining energy from his favorite toy … through the real-world vibrations of this magic vessel … through his eyes watching the world get bigger and closer right in front of him.
A conduit of Wonder.
A minute ago I was thinking about the closest bathroom to my gate … and now I’m beating back a lump in my throat and welling eyes.
Until the train begins slowing, slowing, and easing us to a stop. And the spell is broken by the boo hiss of the doors opening way too soon for whatever comes next.
Forcing us to gather ourselves.
Mom grabs the pole to help her to her feet.
Dad puts his phone away.
The boy climbs back in the stroller.
I wipe an eye with the back of my hand.
And my autopilot kicks back in. I leave the family in my wake, quick walk so I can be first on the escalator. After which I hit the Rite Aid for my ritual snacks and water, bracing for a day of connecting flights taking me across the country for a long week being away from home.
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Our routines, and the world at large, wage a war of attrition against our noticing.
Against our capacity to encounter things we’ve done before and still see them with, or sometimes through, fresh eyes … and lose ourselves in the moment.
Even the in-between moments.
Especially the in-between moments.
A boy in front of the big window, one hand resting gently on his favorite toy.
A Mom and Dad, backpacks, baby and all, hearing the universe’s whispering reminder that they’re on the most glorious ride of their lives.
An uncaffeinated, soggy eyed traveler reaching out for something just to steady his Sunday morning.
Choo-choo.
There is a profound difference between being childish and childlike.
Being childlike is a state of being awake to the magic that exists all around us … and realizing there is no such thing as an in-between moment.
Letters for Maggie 