Coffee Shop Inspiration

This coffee shop is full of noise, a pulsing potpourri of voices and laughs and typing. Inspiration is so easy for me to find in this world and it varies with the day and my mood and the work I'm trying to do. Sometimes I find it under a tree or burrowed in the quilt on my bed. On Saturday, I heard it call me as I drove into the town on the Mississippi River in which I used to live for four years with all of my soulmates. I had been tense and worried as I wound around the bluffs in my little red car but as I turned the last bend, my soul leaped inside me like John the Baptist and the ugly floated out the window. My soul knows what it needs even when my head has no clue.

But this coffee shop is it today, the perfect blend of subdued frenzy and caffeinated energy that I need to power through the homework lying before me and the writing I'm dying to do. In a room full of people, I feel slightly invisible and small, which can be good feelings to have sometimes. This atmosphere- vibrant, loud, full of life- evokes a desire in me to be part of this world, to "contribute a verse," which helps me pick up the textbook and pull out the notebook. I listen and watch, one person with a story in a crowd of strangers who are probably just like me under the skin. My tea fills me up like grace and mercy, like a weekend of family and friends, like a lesson of compassion and a wordless prayer.