Thoughts from a sidewalk cafe

Thursday afternoon.  75 degrees.  Sunny.  A little breeze.  No work.  A sidewalk cafe and jazz on the speakers. Is it possible to get any better than this?  

I have this list of things I wanted to do on vacation.  It is Day #4, and most of my list is done.  One of the things – spend the day at a cafe with my laptop and knitting.  Check.

I’m at Spin Cafe on Park Ave.  Most of you Rochesterians probably know the place.  Decent coffee, and the wireless is free.  

Knitting is the new socks from Apple Laine yarns — Apple Pie.  On size 0’s, the inch of 2×2 ribbing is a slow go, indeed.

I cleaned out my bureau drawers yesterday and found a Kitty Pi I had started several years ago.  I just have to finish another couple of rows around the rim and then felt it.  Voila.  A new bed for the man-cat, and another project jumps from the UFO bin and into the light.

There are three people sitting at the table next to me.  Two men and a woman.  They are all talking about their marriages, past and present, and their therapists.  Words I hear, caught in the breeze:  ”Abuse.”  ”Drinker.”  ”Apologetic.”  Also heard, “I just came from a meeting”, and “early recovery.”  Is it wrong that I think their coffee is paid for by their SS disability checks, earned after several letters from their respective psychiatrists, verifying the severity of their mental illnesses? And this is how they spend their days…chatting in coffee houses about their meds and shrink appointments, engaging in miniature therapy sessions among themselves?

It wasn’t too many years ago that I, fresh from the trauma of separation and divorce, and engaged in my own weekly visits with the psychiatrist (old man with prescription pad and little else of any use to me), spent many an unemployed hour in coffee houses (Okay.  Maybe not.  I spent my time in Perkins.) chatting it up with my fellow sufferers.

At least then I had some friends.  

I am one of those people who never learned the necessary skills of making friends.  It is beyond difficult.  It is nearly impossible.  Three young women just met on the street in front of me, all hugging and exclaiming to each other, acting like long lost sisters.  Sisters.  I think that’s a key word.  Sisters.  I don’t know how I can miss something I’ve never had for more than a couple of years at a time, but I miss the closeness of another woman friend.  Even if it’s just someone to laugh off a stupid-man-moment with.  Oh share the bittersweet days of mothering adult children who have little use for us anymore.  Or someone to reign me in when I want to shop until I drop, which is something I do because (I am keenly aware of this) I am longing for some kind of community, and where else to find it but at the local mall, where someone is always happy to see you?

So I have to work this out, somehow.  At the ripe old age of 49, and what could best be described as in the crone period of my life, how on earth to I teach myself the mechanics of making friends.

Suggestions, as always, are welcome.