What is it about not being at work in the middle of the day that makes it feel like you're breaking the rules? I'm downtown for lunch, and technically, I've been let out of work for the day, but I have coworkers who are still there trucking away. Honestly, there wasn't enough work to justify all of us staying, but it still feels like I'm playing hooky from my everyday responsibilities. I'm having a drink, waiting for my food, and just generally enjoying the ambiance of being able to write and people-watch. I did mention that I was off the clock so all of this is aboveboard. However, I still feel like I should be doing something "responsible." I've set myself up in what resembles one of my Dad's old leather chairs that he used to keep in his study at home. They've got a very "lawyer's office" vibe to them, but that's what makes them so comfortable to me. Is this what freedom feels like? To be able to be out in public, not on vacation, and to feel like a person of means with all the time in the world to do anything I want?
The restaurant/bar that I've found myself in was a different restaurant/bar back before Covid hit. Remember what the world was like before then? That's a whole other can of worms, but I digress for the moment. I was really sad when I found out that former business succumbed to the crisis and lamented that their fresh Moscow mules would no longer be a treat I could look forward to anymore. I'm not resistant to change, but when some place that I really enjoyed has been taken over by a new business, I do tend to automatically hold an undeserved grudge against them until they can prove to me that they are just as good or better than the former place that I had formed an attachment to. Luckily for me and all of the staff here (though they don't know or would really care), the new business has made me very happy and the grudge that they had no clue of has been whisked away.
There's not an ending or moral to this story, just honest reflections on simple dreams of wanting to be able to enjoy life a little more and to be able to wonder at what the people I observe through the expansive windows are thinking and experiencing for themselves. There goes someone in their work polo carrying trays of catered food back to his workplace, there goes the family of tourists with backpacks slung over their shoulders and fanny packs held in front of their bodies under their visors and sunglasses, there goes a city worker pushing a trash can in front of him doing his best to ensure a cleaner city for all to enjoy. Where are they all going? What is their destination and will it take them five minutes or five hours to get there? In this heat I'm hoping for the former. It's seriously miserable outside right now. Regardless, I'm grateful to glimpse even a millisecond of their lives even though my existence isn't a presence that they were ever aware of.
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