We were drinking coffee and sharing a pastry. Compared to the grey sky and the misty drizzle outside, everything in the coffee house warm and fuzzy, if you can call a store full of strangers in a the city warm and fuzzy. After several failed attempts at conversation, we drifted apart directing our attentions to separate things as people who spend many hours together do.

He studied the map on the wall, and pointed out places of interest (to him) and shared some of the same stories he has before, either to me or at me. I took to people watching, observing various postures, styles of dress, and beverage choices. The room was filled with interactions, some direct, most indirect, people like me watching without revealing they are paying attention.

I get the same sense of these strangers I’ve had of other strangers. It doesn’t matter what city, bar, coffee house, an airport, or museum, I always find myself feeling like the people I’m observing have it together, in all the ways I do not. I know I’m seeing a flash in the pan, a single moment from their lives, certainly not an adequate amount of time to entitle me to any level of judgement (as if we can ever know anyone that well or long enough to know all of them), but I can’t help myself jumping to the conclusion, they know who they are and they have life figured out.