In coffee shop at park’s edge, they met and shared of life. $7.38 for cup of coffee—it was small price to pay to see a friend with whom there would be no reason to meet again.
In autumn season, sun’s later rise, the morning light shone golden. It’s beam, shade-lined and formed by awn of window’s beyond, light shone in rayed band touching into heart of space.
Jeans and a flannel shirt—he dressed plain in his normal way. She wore jeans as well and brown, high boots that covered nearly to her knee. Clean white shirt that fitted close wore beneath brown cardigan’s loose that appeared and wore as fall.
He stared down into coffee’s cup as if words, within, where there—the ones he wished to speak and say amidst the warmth and spiraled column of steam’s rise—but they were not.
And so he drank of his cup looking on sun and she, peaceful in their silence—share of company—even when the words he wished were nowhere to be found.
Absent else, he asked of books—small talk of cities, parks, and coffee shops.
“Are you into a good book right now?” he asked.
“Only children’s,” she answered in mirth and chide, smile on her face meek and gentle as the autumn light that shined upon her then.
He remembered to when his children were small, when he still read to them at night, the favorite ones that they would share—read over time and again. There was Little Blue Truck, a gift of his grandparents. His grandfather having a little blue truck of his own just as in the story so that when they read and turned the page “G-G-Pa’s Truck” would be shouted in recognize in each new scene and part of story that appeared.
What do You Do with an Idea? Aa little older, the story always made him feel, and there was a night he cried when his daughter—older then and book unread for a while—asked for it again on day he struggled with a dream.
The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Lessmore—he cried to it first-read. Found same days What Do You Do with an Idea? He read them both in store before he ever bought, and in his children’s youngest years, he returned to both time and again.
It was a beautiful age, a beautiful era. Older and more grown, his children rarely read. He wondered what would be their thoughts if never fed with imagination. He did not know but prayed they’d return to them in time.
All of this he processed in silence of an instant. All of this he never said and, unlike story, disbelieved that she could read.
He transitioned back to present.
“I finished one the other day I thought that you might like,” he shared.
“Oh yeah? What is it?”
“The Meaning of Your Life, by Arthur C. Brooks.” If you liked Big Magic, I thought that you might like this too. They’re not the same, but both resonated inside of me, and if the first did for you, maybe this one will as well.”
“Sounds like a heavy question…”
“Maybe it is, or maybe it isn’t. Maybe it’s dependent on how much you overthink, strain, and try and force instead of allowing itself to reveal and simply be…”
“And what is the answer?”
“Everyone’s should be a little different. But the wavetop summary, with rest still worth the read: purpose, presence, gratitude, and beauty…It made me think of you, that you might know the answer too.”
Beneath the table, her toe tapped light, foot of high-crossed leg dance-drawing in the air as morning light shone gentle on her still.
Lips of smile narrowed in draw to straight and covered under musing finger’s touch as sight of eyes turned from out to introspection of within.
Like he, in silence of an instant, she transitioned back to present.
She reached for cup on table’s face, raised it to her lips. She drank from her and felt its warmth, cream and sweetness’ flow over lips and tongue. Having tasted the warmth, drank of the sweet, she lowered cup to table’s return.
From within, her eyes looked out again to see and gaze on him. Her smile too—gentle and meek—shone as the autumn light.
“Maybe I will find it,” she spoke in tone of serene. “Thank you for the guide and lead.”
Purpose, presence, gratitude, and beauty—all were there within.
She was beautiful in gentle and rayed-bathe of the autumn light.