(the following is adapted from part of a journal entry composed yesterday at the borders bookstore in lancaster).

i just finished reading a book by douglas coupland called polaroids from the dead, and towards the tail end of the thing he says something that sums up an idea that has been rattling around in my head a little bit as of late: “it has been said that as animals, one factor that sets us apart from all other animals is that our lives need to be stories, narratives, and that when our stories vanish, that is when we feel lost, dangerous, out of control and susceptible to the forces of randomness.”

here at borders i sit in the cafe area along the front wall, which, like barnes & noble (my regular writing spot), is composed mostly of glass. at the table in front of me there are two people, a man and a woman. i’d say she’s in her late twenties and he is in his thirties, judging by the sparse but slighty noticeable specks of grey on his hair ends and the fact that he is wearing a sweater vest.

i have my headphones on, so i don’t know what they’re talking about at this table in front of me, but there are plenty of hand movements and laughs and good listening skills. i’d say they’re enamored with each other. i see a ring on her left ring finger, but i can’t tell from here if it has any engagement/marital significance. i haven’t gotten a good look at his hands, as his back is to me, but i’d wager they’re not married. rather, i’d presume they are on a date, and one of their first with each other at that. they just still seem to be riding a wave of infatuation involving a fair share of charm, optimism and possibility.

i’d like to make clear that when i say i detect infatuation, i’m not demeaning their (budding) relationship in any way. they both seem confident, laid-back-yet-driven, and i think they both have a good head on their shoulders. but even these types of people probably start off with infatuation i’d imagine, before they move on to the deeper stuff like love and respect and faithfulness.

they both seem to be enjoying the company of the other, and being the communication guru that i am, i’d say that judging by their interaction, they are both hoping there will be more dates where this one came from. honestly, i wish them the best, i really do. i wish them many years of love and i hope they’ll still be laughing together at cafe/bookstores fifty years from now (that is, if cafe/bookstores are still around in fifty years and haven’t gone the way of the buffalo and the drive-in movie by that time). if you ask me, i think these two here in front of me have between them what it takes to keep the flame alive.

i often find myself doing this - forming narratives for those who cross my paths if only in passing. i did it earlier today when stopped behind a schoolbus. a girl, probably no more than eight or nine, got off the bus and ran to her mother who waited at the end of the driveway and they hugged like she was a soldier coming home from battle and i began to wonder what sorts of things the mean kids had said to the poor girl during school and that sort of thing. but then the flashing red lights on the back of the bus stopped flashing and i gradually switched from the clutch to the gas pedal and as i passed the driveway i noticed smiles on their faces, so i suppose it would be safe to say that this mother and this daughter have a good relationship, and the bullies preyed on someone else today.

this same urge that leads me to construct narratives about people in cafes, and about mothers and daughters in driveways, i’d suppose, is also what leads me, all too often, to cast negative stereotypes. i like to think that based on the very surface-level and perhaps quite coincidental observations i make about people that i can connect the dots and figure them out, much like an astronomer takes five random stars and acts like he sees a bear or a vacuum cleaner in the sky. it is really a pretty ridiculous undertaking, to say the least, to try to fill in so many blanks and assume you have come to a legitimate conclusion the way i do.

i say this because in the time it has taken me to write the above paragraph, that couple in front of me - the man and the woman on a date, full of butterflies and infatuation - stood up, walked over to the trash can to throw out their cups and napkins and things, and walked out the door. in so doing, i caught a glimpse of his hand and he wears a wedding ring after all. i am now concluding that they are indeed married (because people having an affair don’t meet at borders for a couple of hours, sitting at a big window, where they laugh and talk and carry on amidst a crowd of people).

i know this because i am really good at constructing narratives.