This evening I’m sitting at a table in an outdoor cafe, surrounded by Middle Eastern men with burning cigarettes. It all feels very Covert Affairs. Like I’m a handler, waiting for my contact to show.
But my real purpose is much less exciting. The two older boys attend youth group on this side of the island and since this coffee shop is right around the corner from where they meet and it has a small playground, it makes sense to stay out this way. I’ll do anything I can to save myself some extra driving.
So I sip my cappuccino with a side of smoke and listen as words that I don’t understand roll off the tongues of those around me. I pull out my notebook and read over my stories of Paris, deciding this evening I will write in the present instead of about the past. Meanwhile, my two blondies play with a group of dark haired little boys. They are different every week, but the game is always the same: chase.
After three weeks Camille is finally comfortable enough to join in the game, shrieking along with the rest of them, rather than scaling the plastic playhouse and sitting on the roof where none of the littler boys can reach her. I think about how different her life is at age 5 from any of her brothers. I wonder if any of it will be relevant a decade from now. I wonder where we’ll be a decade from now.
As I’m finishing up, Caleb comes over and asks, “Do you always write everywhere you go?” I give him the writer’s response: I write down what I see, what I think about things, and things I don’t want to forget. Whatever comes to mind. He goes on to ask, “Mom, have you ever thought, you know, when Camille goes to school…”
And I think, “Wow, my son is going to speak God’s calling to me and confirm that I should write a book. This is going to be a story I tell when people ask me how I became a writer.” Until he finishes with, “…of getting a job?”
Bubble burst.