It All Starts With…

I have a scene in my head from my lunch with Marc this week, and I can’t get it out of my head.

At the table next to us, an older couple was sitting, enjoying their lunch.  They had not only ordered the set, restaurant week menu, but like us, they added a bottle of wine.  They seemed to talk to each other only sporadically, in bursts of chatter which seemed to peter out after a few moments.  They each ordered an appetizer and a main course, and then the waiter presented them with two dazzling, upright souffles, into which they tucked with gusto.  The woman was tall and thin, sitting upright and sporting a neat cap of completely white hair.  She wore a white blouse and perfectly creased black pants.  The man of the couple was a bit stouter, dressed in a shirt and tie, and had a few white wisps on his otherwise shiny pate.  I swear they were eighty if they were a day.  They moved and spoke together as if they had been married for sixty years, which it was easy to imagine they were.  It was just impossibly sweet.

A very quick, passing scene from the week before is also in my head.  As I passed a cemetery while driving, I noticed a woman sitting on a milk crate in front of one gravestone, holding an umbrella to guard against the beating sun.  The blank sincerity of the moment just broke my heart.

As a writer, these are the types of scenes that stay in my head.  I will write about both of them, most likely in concert.  I have to.  The writer in me demands that I paint the scenes in words.  Watch this space for further comment.