My Favorite Time

I think my favorite thing to do is to get up too early for something, get completely ready, and go downtown with nowhere to be for about two hours. I'll just get a cup of coffee, sit outside, and watch the city walk past. People/bird watching is my kind of meditation. (Well, okay, the coffee helps, too.) Some talk on cell phones, some to each other, and some to themselves. I can see peacefulness in an elderly woman or harriedness in a buisness-dressed man. Some check their watches. Some notice the same birds that I do. Some look at me. I always smile, and I usually get a smile back. I regain hope in humanity when people will take the time to smile at a total stranger. Mainly I just soak in the town and myself through the solidarity of the expirience. If it's rainig, (as it often is in the Valley) I watch people rushing to get out of the rain, I watch people accepting that the rain is there, and I watch the people who celebrate the fact that they can feel rain on their faces. I become still and present. Every now and again, I'll see the same person on more than one occasion, and I'll smile and get a cordially curt nod of recognition. This non-spoken bond of friendship based solely around the fact that we both enjoy downtown mornings is what makes me love living in a small town. Afterward, I usually explore a local bookstore or the public library. I'll never find anything as rewarding or as cheerful as a room full of books.