Quiet Moments

The coffee shop is busy, Sunday afternoon in December and people are weary from Christmas shopping. I sit outside ignoring the cold enjoying the warmth of coffee down my throat immediately followed by the inhaling of nicotine. My spot is noisy yet peaceful. This woolly hat may be making my hair static, my coat may be belted painfully tight and my scarf has engulfed my chin. But I’m as content as any smoker can be in the winter.

Parents and small children bustle past with their little faces ready for Santa fully ignoring the scratchy winter jumper they’ve been forced into, the parents are tired and depressed thinking about how broke they are now and if they’ll make it through January without eating any of the children. A group of teenage hipster girls sit with their overly complicated beverages discussing whether to get their first boyfriends presents or not, they’ve been together a month why not? It won’t last long my cynicism says though I smile, I speculate if I were ever like them trying to work out the rules of dating in a fast-paced era that is only speeding up.

I pick up my coffee and hug it to my chest a moment feeling the warmth run through me. Closing my eyes I listen to the sounds of modern life: cups clinking against saucers, the murmur of mindless chatter, the hiss of a bus as it stops and the hoots of the pigeons it startled. I listen and ponder, why don’t I take more quiet moments like these? To just stop and sit calmly with myself, that’s all we live for I suppose. We work hard, pay bills, buy houses, raise kids and the reward, if we’re lucky, is to have more quiet moments. We’ve all simply got too much do to and very little time to do it in, so the quiet moments have to wait and wait and wait.

Well, screw it, I’m having mine now.