During January, I will be writing four essays on the Urge to Write. Please look back here next Thursday for the next installment.
If I believed in past lives, I would bet I lived one close to where I am sitting, right now.
I write inside Peet’s on Polk St, off Broadway in San Francisco, plugging letters into my cell phone notes, praying they make sense without much effort since on this spontaneous trip to help a friend I neglected to bring my notebook or pens or pencils or even an extra pair of socks.
I did manage, however, to slip away from a hotel room where my friends slept
later than I would ever think of sleeping when San Francisco is percolating
right outside the window.
I wandered, the delectable early morning light my muse, until I found a counter at Peet’s and a cup of coffee to keep me company.
One needy man wearing a black bubble jacket drinks Fiji water with his cup of Peet's. No one told me bubble jackets, similar yet less voluptuous than my younger years, are the thing to wear here.
A perfectly perfect young couple in their navy blue BMW X3 stops by. The woman half of the couple - I'm calling her Lindsey - fetches two lattes while the driver man half of the couple waits, thinking about his work which I imagine is in the financial district and he thinks it is is very important or at least pays well.
I write as well as I can without paper and wonder how it is that I have spent 3 of the last 4 new year’s days near in this area.
This time, I am helping a friend and frustrating my children. Tonight I'll
be back in Bakersfield, wishing I was here.
This is a place where dogs are welcomed and a woman my age in Yoga pants and running shoes climbs into an older model BMW where the X3 just left, leaving room for a silver Mercedes that pulls up almost right after she pulls away.
A silver haired man unencumbered with deadlines takes his place in my morning assemblage while a young man asks another man behind me “What's on the docket? Any travel in January?”
He speaks of just a horse he owns running in Santa Anita, nothing major like....well, like any metaphor I can come up with on short notice while the younger man, still unseen by me, waits for a woman who lives at Pacific and Polk. “Ah, high rent,” says the man who owns the race horse.
I need to find my way back to my friends but I want to stay here, writing on Peet’s on Polk street. It is a place I instantly feel connected to the homeless man in the bubble jacket, the upscale young couple, the yoga pants wearing woman and the past in the bustle of an early morning in January in San Francisco.
Without saying a word, with simply writing as best I can, I feel at peace. I feel at wonder. I feel at home. I feel whole.
If I believed in past lives, I would bet I lived one close to where I am sitting, right now.
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© 2013 by Julie Jordan Scott
This is my first first post (of 31!) for the January Ultimate Blog Challenge.
Watch here for challenge posts which will include Writing Prompts, Writing
Tips and General Life Tips and Essays.
Julie Jordan Scott has been a Life & Creativity Coach, Writer, Facilitator and Teleclass Leader since 1999. She is also an award winning Actor, Director, Artist and Mother Extraordinaire. She was twice the StoryTelling Slam champion in Bakersfield. She leads Writing Camp with JJS and will be traveling throughout the US to bring this unique, fun filled creative experience to the people wherever she finds the passion & the interest.
