Monday in the Empty Coffee Shop

16 December 2019

Monday in the Empty Coffee Shop. The students are gone. Peace and slow motion living. 

Don’t really know what to talk about.  The weekend was filled with work for my wife.  To keep her focused I worked on the mundane, the laundry.  Graduation occurred and was celebrated with beer and oysters.  My oldest ordered half a dozen on the half shell and ate them all by himself.  There was no offer to share.  He washed it down with a couple of porters and finished off the celebratory event with fish tacos.  

I had fish tacos too.  Got some hush puppies too.  The weekend food was clearly of a southern bent.  One meal involved fish and hush puppies.  Another involved black eyed peas, ham steak, cole slaw and corn meal muffins.  Yup, did dip into my family’s roots food.

Call it what you will, superstition or faith, I went to church last night.  It was the third Sunday of Advent.  I offered up a prayer of thanksgiving for John Lee’s graduation.  With the students gone there were maybe ten congregants in the sanctuary.  But the Christmas wreaths, the garlands wrapped together with lights and the subtle Christmas trees made it feel special to be there.

I feel like I am looking out an open window looking out on my beloved Atlantic. It feels like summer is coming to an end.  Labor Day is here and everyone is going away from the water’s edge.  The water is still warm.  The air is still warm.  But other people’s routines are drawing back to school and work.  Me. I am looking out at an empty beach and feeling the joy of a special uncrowded few weeks.