architecture of people.

i made the most exquisite looking latte today. soy milk is good milk, but most especially for decorating purposes.

P tells me that she's taking a class about the history of the middle east. i know her so well, & yet sometimes, when i ask her how she's been, she's so taken aback, & then so pleased, that i even bothered to ask her such a question. i think she's one of my favorite regulars. the wise world traveler. a lonely woman who seems so okay with being lonely. if i do end up alone in this lifetime, i hope i can be as accepting and independent as she seems to be.

i want to write about the woodshop men. next door is a wood shop, a part of the architecture firm. it's the rough & tough, hands-on part, where the workers wear flannel shirts and paint stained blue jeans, work boots and hats in this cold. they are the ones with the occasional earring, the tattoos peeking out beneath their rolled up sleeves, the wiry beards, the leathery, sunned skin. these are the ones that use their hands and make things happen - they turn the things on paper into three-dimensional reality.
i don't know them by name. there is the one with the white beard, who left a $20 bill in the tip jar around Christmas. There is the one who orders a muffin with his coffee. there is the one with the earring and the soft eyes, the one who is jolly and calls me a 'cutie' in a fatherly sort of way, and then there is my favorite one: the one who shaves his head bald until it shines, who tells me about his three daughters, & i tell him i have two sisters, & i can tell he cares for them so much because i pour black dark roast into a makeshift clay creation mug, clearly created by a young girl. he has an earring as well, wears moccasins on occasion, & i can tell he's the type that puts his feet up on the table and doesn't take things too seriously. he's handsome, & i can get away with calling him 'dude.'

they seem so enduring. so simple. scratched up, yet unscathed.

***

"The knowledge of impermanence that haunts our days is their very fragrance."