Have you heard about the Norwegian who loved his wife so much that he almost told her?
Do you know how to recognize a Norwegian extrovert? He stares at someone else's shoes.
And here I am, being Norwegian! Sometime this summer, Mari and I shall move back to Tucson. In 2002, we moved from Tucson to the Nokomis Beach Coffee Cafe. At first, our furniture was stored in a house in Minneapolis, six blocks from the Coffee Shop. After a few years, we moved our stuff to Eagan, across the river. Our life, though, has been at the Coffee Shop, not because we spent so much time there, but because when we do go there--most mornings, for an hour--we see people whom we love.
We shall never say that, of course. We have not dribbled so far from our Scandinavian wellspring that we talk about our feelings. It is just that--you know--some of the best people we have ever known simply happen to be there at about the same time, and if we were not staring at our own shoes, we would look up and say we loved them.
Why? Because they are genuine, interesting people. There is a minimum of pretense and bullshit. We talk about politics and religion and family and deep-sea exploration. We talk about restaurants and births and deaths, and we disagree with each other fiercely, in order to reach agreement, or enduring difference. We don't care how it comes out: the pleasure is in getting there; in learning something; in trying ideas.
We aren't younger and older, although we are. We are carpenter and computer and money-counter in the temple and and male and female. We read books--not together, but simply as we do--and report about movies. Most of our time, most of almost every day, we never see each other, because we have our own lives. We see each other only in the morning, most mornings, at coffee, and then we go away to do what we have to do, and think about each other, sometimes.
We don't buy coffee for each other, not even as an understood trade-off. Nothing about money cements us together; not if we have it, not if we don't. In the rest of our lives, some of us are monetary Spartans, and some are more Athenian, but that is not why we talk. We talk because there are interesting things in the newspaper, and in the air. And we talk because the people we are talking to are interesting, caring people who don't know much about neutrinos and the speed of light, or why some people are racist, or what little kids think about, or can think about, but we know it matters.
If my shoes were not so fascinating, I would tell them.
And here I am, being Norwegian! Sometime this summer, Mari and I shall move back to Tucson. In 2002, we moved from Tucson to the Nokomis Beach Coffee Cafe. At first, our furniture was stored in a house in Minneapolis, six blocks from the Coffee Shop. After a few years, we moved our stuff to Eagan, across the river. Our life, though, has been at the Coffee Shop, not because we spent so much time there, but because when we do go there--most mornings, for an hour--we see people whom we love.
We shall never say that, of course. We have not dribbled so far from our Scandinavian wellspring that we talk about our feelings. It is just that--you know--some of the best people we have ever known simply happen to be there at about the same time, and if we were not staring at our own shoes, we would look up and say we loved them.
Why? Because they are genuine, interesting people. There is a minimum of pretense and bullshit. We talk about politics and religion and family and deep-sea exploration. We talk about restaurants and births and deaths, and we disagree with each other fiercely, in order to reach agreement, or enduring difference. We don't care how it comes out: the pleasure is in getting there; in learning something; in trying ideas.
We aren't younger and older, although we are. We are carpenter and computer and money-counter in the temple and and male and female. We read books--not together, but simply as we do--and report about movies. Most of our time, most of almost every day, we never see each other, because we have our own lives. We see each other only in the morning, most mornings, at coffee, and then we go away to do what we have to do, and think about each other, sometimes.
We don't buy coffee for each other, not even as an understood trade-off. Nothing about money cements us together; not if we have it, not if we don't. In the rest of our lives, some of us are monetary Spartans, and some are more Athenian, but that is not why we talk. We talk because there are interesting things in the newspaper, and in the air. And we talk because the people we are talking to are interesting, caring people who don't know much about neutrinos and the speed of light, or why some people are racist, or what little kids think about, or can think about, but we know it matters.
If my shoes were not so fascinating, I would tell them.
Thanks for telling us you love us, as only a Norwegian can.
ReplyDeleteI am not Norwegian, but Iowegian...and you let me in on your coffee shop love affair!
ReplyDeleteThank you and let it be known to the whole world, my shoes are boring, but my coffee shop friends are not AND I LOVE THEM! (It's so freeing to be an Irish-Scottish-English-German mutt!