A tea day

Just so we're all clear & on the same page here, it's ... well, fall, perhaps? Grey and drizzly and damp, 50s. A tea day.

Miraculously -- OK, with the help of a promise to pick up a friend who's temporarily carless -- I made it to rowing this morning. Not precisely prime motivation when the alarm rings through your exhausted surety it's the middle of the night, and you hear rain dripping down, feel the chill from the open window, and your body confirms it really needs more sleep. Yet, dredge up I did, and had a great row (we went upstream ... the basin & I are still in therapy, working thru our "issues" ... but let the record show I'm doing way more of the work because it's, you know, a basin). Aftermath was wet & chill. A tea day.

Now I've got a cozy gato next to me, fuzzy socks and a fleece sweathshirt, but I seem to have a small episode of the voices freaking out in my head. So that may mean it's time to leave the house, head down, get some work done -- there's a sudden university theme to the interesting part-time communications positions I'm applying to. Still a tea day.

Given that it's a tea day and all, and the nonfun voices in my head were chattering (oh, what? like you don't have those voices, too), I headed for a more full-immersion tea experience ... no, not a tea bath, altho that does sound lovely. No, the nearby Starbucks.

And while, yeah, teadrinking, and working on resume submittal, I realized something interesting. Naturally, I don't know quite what-all this is yet, but it's around some glimmer of understanding about the legions of folks mostly tapping away, some reading, most on their own (two groupings) who come here to work or study -- to do something productive, yet in a cafe environment. I like cafes, so I've always sorta gotten it, but from the now of being a solo-from-homer, suddenly it clicks there's something really nice about being in a place where you're going to work, there isn't really anything else to do, but you're around people -- you're in an odd bit of a community of sorts -- something many of us are wanting/lacking.

It's not sterile or too quiet, but there aren't really any other serious distractions -- lots of minor ones in the people watching, but you can only do so much of that. It's not the place for quiet, uninterrupted work of course, but a little music, humanity, hubbub can do wonders for the solo spirit.

It's a tea day.