Sometimes, it takes the smallest moments to remind us there is still a lot of beauty left out there.
Last Tuesday, after yet another snowstorm in sub-zero temperatures and a fresh string of headlines from The New York Times, I was feeling particularly fed up with the world.
I dragged myself out of bed, annoyed that my afternoon classes weren’t cancelled, and stumbled down to my favorite cafe, Wonders of Nature, to chip away at some homework. I happen to be an employee at this cafe, so I chatted with my coworkers and some regulars before sitting down at my laptop.
The local K-12 schools had a “snow day” on Tuesday (an occurrence I miss dearly; school cancellations were on par with Christmas, Easter and even Halloween back in the day), so several parents brought their children in for celebratory smoothies and baked goods.
Because I was in no mood whatsoever to do homework, I half-eavesdropped on some of the customers’ plans for the bonus day they’d been granted. One boy was going with his father to play on the exercise equipment at the YMCA. Another group was going sledding that afternoon.
My favorite overheard conversation, however, took place between a middle-aged married couple. The two sat directly across from me as I was typing on my computer. From what I gathered, the woman is a kindergarten teacher who, like the children, had the day off.
She and her husband ordered breakfast and began to make conversation. It was clear from the beginning that these two knew each other better than anyone else in the world. They’d mastered the nuances of one another’s speech so perfectly that they could hold an entire conversation while using the absolute minimum number of words.
The woman would say things like, “You know the man who does the voiceovers for Menards? He also drives a school bus.” And the man would respond, “I burned my tongue on coffee yesterday.” And then, they would sit in comfortable silence before moving on to the next topic.
Their discussions ranged from stories of unruly kindergarteners to sports to the misadventures of their grandson, who was just learning to walk.
This interaction brought me an indescribable amount of joy. Here were two people who had likely spent the past two to three decades living side by side, experiencing everything in each other’s company.
During the course of that time, they had fused together so completely that their conversations had turned into a perpetual, interwoven stream of consciousness.
That concept of not only shared lives and experiences but almost a shared brain and speech pattern is so wholesome and wonderful to think about. They’d created a language that was entirely their own.
I know I’m reading way into these people’s lives and relationship, but what I took away from that conversation really transformed my entire day. Despite everything that’s going on in the world, it’s moments of pure humanity like that which bring warmth and light to the darkest of times.
Wojahn can be reached at wojahnal7429@uwec.edu.
