I did it, I wrote. I’ve discovered (and what writer hasn’t, except me apparently?) that it’s GREAT to write at the coffeeshop. I always thought there would be too many distractions. And it’s true, there are a lot of ‘em. Weird-looking dogs. People who sing. People who talk on their cell phones WAY too loudly (common courtesy, folks, that’s all I’m sayin’).
But you kinda look up, you notice, you look back down and go on working. At home I have SO many more distractions, and there’s always the option of standing up and doing other things, all those other little things that absolutely must get taken care of right now. When you’re out of the house, those reminders are gone. It’s fun just to sit and write and drink chai and dream. Felt like playing.
I love that feeling.
It also felt like playing last night when I took BART into the City to meet the girls for knitting. It was raining and I got incredibly lost walking around looking for the bar where we were supposed to meet. I had Yahoo-mapped the directions, which is, let’s face it, not always the best way to go. I ended up about three-quarters of a mile down Delores in the wrong direction, in the rain. But it was awesome. Lost in the rain, on SF streets, it felt romantic and adventurous. If I had never found the bar, it would have turned into something quite irritating, but I called my friend Brooke who knew exactly where I was supposed to be and how to get there.
And so I ended up at Papa Tobey’s Revolution Art Bar Cafe. Yup. With the sliding walls opened all the way to the street and the rain, with its drunk cowboy who’s apparently a regular, with acoustic music sung by extremely sensitive women, with the back of the bar filled with eight or nine knitters, it was awesome.
Part of the group:
The cowboy, playing chess and drinking under the overhang, next to the rain:
But hey. Knitting cables by candlelight, two beers down, without a cable needle? Daring, to say the least. I swore quietly. A lot. But it was worth it.
Working fourteen hours Saturday, so I’ll see you Sunday?
Wow–I gave up on going to the SnB in my ‘hood because I nearly went blind the one time I went.
it sounds like you had a great day! I like working at coffeeshops, too. There’s a sort of romance in it, doncha think?
Sounds like a fun adventure to me. What a neat thing to do — knitting with friends at a coffee shop.
sigh. sob. The City in the rain….
writing and knitting and sharing it
with us…..
honestly, Rachael
you do my heart SO much good!
Ah, that all sounds so good to me, from the coffeeshop writing to the candlight knitting — even being lost in the rain. As for writing and distractions, you never know what you may see at a cafe that inspires something in your writing.
Coffee shop is where I go when writing at home doesn’t work. The distractions are only momentary; they aren’t laundry or knitting or bills, or striping wallpaper or regrouting the tiles or some other made up task that keeps you from writing. Done some of my best work there.
(Can you tell I have issues with my writing process?) 🙂