Musician's Widow

Last night, I “worked the door” at the bar I work at downtown Nashville. That just means I checked IDs (GUH! 1990 = 21. I feel so OLD.) and attempted to beckon people in the door.

Knowing I would be the first face they’d see at the bar, I decided to take a little extra care in how I dressed versus my typical bartender outfit of tank top, jeans and comfy shoes. I wanted to present the bar well (and actually DID bring a few people in based on my appearance because, “you make this look like a respectable place!”) and beyond that my allergies have still been going nuts, and dressing nicer makes ME feel better and gives me drive to keep going.

Now, working the door isn’t my favorite job at the bar. I don’t mind it, but I’m not the best at yelling out to random people, “No cover! Live band! Come check us out!” I’m too much of a people watcher. I can easily sit for hours on end, just watching the people pass. And within that, I’ve gotten pretty good at predicting ahead of time which bar a person is going to want to enter based on their dress, attitude, etc.

And boy! Let me tell you… dress, attitude, etc. is all over the board sometimes. I love the diversity! TV can never give the entertainment or variety of just sitting back and watching others interact with each other and their surroundings.

It just so happened, a large group had just come out of the bar I was at, and they’d come to a stop in the middle of the alley. I looked down at my phone to check the time, when a maroon purse and gold-ish (not gaudy gold, but gold toned) heels caught my peripheral vision. I could tell a woman was trying to get around the group.

My head snapped up to look as this woman walked away. And I’ll be honest. I was mesmerized.

Walking away was an elegant, sophisticated and confident black woman. Without missing a beat, she slung her purse over her shoulder, and she walked with a stride that never faultered. Her maroon dress hugged her curves just right, showing off a perfect hourglass figure without a single piece of skin needlessly being revealed. Her tall heels complimented her toned legs. Her hair a perfect round halo around her head, which was held high.

It was a little like something you’d only see in a commercial.

I couldn’t stop staring in admiration. I knew nothing of this woman. I hadn’t even made eye contact with her. And yet everything about her screamed confidence. Nothing she wore was flashy. She had not gone out of her way to be noticed. It was just her confidence in herself that caught my attention. Her confidence in herself burned itself in my mind.

After crossing paths with hundreds of people tonight, as I left to go home it was that one woman and her confidence that continued to stick with me. It’s kind of like reading a dozen blogs in one day, but only bookmarking one. This woman has inspired me to want that kind of confidence just radiate out — in what I do and in how I present myself. Deep down, I’ve been looking for inspiration lately. I just never expected it to come to me as a woman in a maroon dress walking down an alley.

I’m being one of THOSE people today. You know the kind. Those people who go to a coffee shop with their laptops, sit in the corner, and type furiously. The ones you wonder if they are writing about you or a term paper. Why do they have to do that in public? How… pretentious!

Well, first off, I AM writing about you. (I’ll get to that in a minute.) Second of all, its not pretentious, its just me needing to get out of the house! Yes, I could do this from home. I have been for the last week! But its lonely at home. My cat does not hold conversations very well. And, seriously, as much as I love my house… I can’t handle being in it almost non-stop for seven days.

See, my husband in right in the middle of a two-week run to the west-coast. And I am just WAY out of practice of his being gone so long. I’m used to a maximum of maybe four days out, then home for at least a day or two.  Not this run. Two weeks solid. And talking on the phone only gets me so far in the sanity department.

I’ve wanted to come down to Starbucks for awhile now. It’s kind of a no-brainer. Its barely three miles from my house, in fact. But I just couldn’t justify the cost. I have coffee at home. I have internet at home. I even had cupcake mixes at home!  But, you see in that picture above, the card? Yeah, that card pretty much gave me back some of my sanity. My cousin sent me that with a little treat inside that resulted in my gleefully hitting Starbucks today for a Grande Vanille Latte and a big, fat slice of banana walnut bread. So. Very. Yum.

So here I am, right in the corner of my local Starbucks, sipping my latte, people-watching and eavesdropping.

My favorite thus far has to be the guy who, for what ever reason, had to sit at the table right beside mine. Even though there were probably 15 empty tables in the building. And he’s not having anything. He’s just sitting at the table, playing with his phone. Interesting. Seems to be a soldier, in full army fatigues. Maybe he’s waiting for someone to end their shift. Or maybe he’s waiting to meet someone. Who knows. But he proceeded for have a ten minute conversation on his phone in which he kept saying, “Oh, she went home already? Are you sure she went home already? That’s what she said, she went home already?” After about the eighth time of this, I almost looked over and went, “Look! She went home already! Deal with it!” But, you know, I thought that might be a little rude. So I didn’t.

Another fun one has to be the girl on crutches whose friends didn’t bother to get up and get her coffee order for her. They watched her struggle to get up, then once she did went, “Oh I guess I could have gotten that for you.”  *facepalms* Teens.

My final favorite was watching a lady come in, order a drink, then sit down and proceed to pay her bills. Then for each bill she paid, she’d rip the statement in half and throw it away. Don’t get me wrong, but that doesn’t seem like the safest way to protect yourself from identity theft. But, hey, maybe Starbucks trash cans have some sort of super-sonic-bill-destroyer-system in them.

Or maybe not.

This, folks, this is what that “pretentious person with laptop at the coffee shop” wonders. That’s deep, man. Deep.