A while back I was inter­viewed for an online lit mag. The final ver­sion had a pre­face say­ing, basic­ally, that I am a writer in isolation.

That’s true.

For illus­trat­ive pur­poses, please join me in this brief arts and crafts type of activ­ity: take an 8.5 x 11 inch white sheet of paper, draw a little circle in the middle, and then draw an X in the middle of that circle. (The X can be a bright color if you want.) Draw some waves out­side of the circle on the expanse of paper. The end.

I am in that X. The waves are, well, waves … like, in the ocean. The little circle is an island. Pre­tend you are 4,000 feet in the air look­ing at that paper. That is how isol­ated I am when I write. It’s true.

I am very alone.

In the pre­face of the inter­view, the editor men­tions how I don’t go to “cof­fee shops and hang out with geni­uses”, which made me think: maybe I should go to a local cof­fee shop and hang out with geni­uses? Per­haps this will help my craft! I will try it!

So, I decided to go to one of my local cof­fee shops and write.

I packed up my com­puter and some read­ing mater­i­als (for inspir­a­tion) and drove. I picked a Star­bucks that I thought might not be very pop­u­lated and made my way inside.

I bought a coffee.

There were already many seats taken. These people all had com­puters. I wondered if they were isol­ated writers as well, try­ing their hand at hanging out with geni­uses … or, maybe they were the geniuses.

I smiled at them all. “Look! I am hanging out with you! Like a real, non-isolated writer!” my smile said.

They seemed confused.

Undaun­ted, I found a chair next to this black kid. He was typ­ing away and I felt ‘camaraderie’.

After set­tling in, I began read­ing. It was hard to relax. I felt every­one was look­ing at me. I tried to focus on the pages in my hands. Even­tu­ally, I relaxed and fin­ished read­ing all the pages in my hands while sip­ping my coffee.

The black kid left and I moved to take his chair. It was by a power out­let. Now I could plug in and get some non-isolated writ­ing going.

The vinyl chair was ick­ily warm from the length of time he had spent in it. I felt my stom­ach squirm. “This heat is from his ass and his back,” I thought. It was like I had sat on a fresh sneeze or something.

Undaun­ted, I plugged in. A little leftover body warmth wasn’t going to sway me from get­ting in some writ­ing time with cof­fee house geniuses …

My com­puter star­ted up and I opened a Word document.

I looked around to sur­vey all of the geniuses.

There were a couple of older black ladies with papers between them. Meet­ing perhaps?

A mom and dad with some kids. One of the kids was pulling on a tall stool and it fell. The mom grabbed the kid by the shoulder and said some­thing sharp to him.

A guy in a black hoodie with an iPod in his ears. Scary beard.

Two His­panic dudes talk­ing anim­atedly over a com­puter screen.

An eld­erly Asian gen­tle­man and what might have been his wife wait­ing for their bever­ages. He was using a walker so when their drinks were ready, she car­ried his cof­fee for him as they made their way to the door, but not before bring­ing it to his lips so he could taste it.

A His­panic dude to my right. He’d been there on his com­puter the entire time I was read­ing. Every so often he’d begin talk­ing to him­self in Span­ish or slurp on his empty drink as if it were going to magic­ally be full again. The ice rattled every time he did this and the noise of no liquid enter­ing the straw soun­ded like con­stant defeat.

In the far corner, a very fat woman wear­ing sweat­pants and a bur­gundy beret. She was sip­ping on a Frap­puccino and eat­ing some sort of crumbly pastry. I could make out specks of crumbs on her jut­ting bosom, which cradled the crumbs like a shelf.

My fin­gers poised about the key­board. “Geni­uses, give me strength,” I thought.

I closed my eyes, took a deep cleans­ing breath, and opened them again, bra­cing myself for the cre­at­ive onslaught.

Noth­ing came.

I looked back at the geni­uses. Search­ing for … what? Wis­dom? Inspir­a­tion? Confidence?

The fat lady’s beret dipped down over her face as she looked down to brush the crumbs.

The His­panic dude sipped his empty drink for a for­ti­eth time, mumbling.

The fam­ily with the stool-toppling kid made a loud exit.

Still noth­ing.

Maybe these aren’t the geni­uses the editor was speak­ing of. After all, whenever I pic­tured a den of writers gathered at a cof­fee house, the images that came to mind were beat­nik in color. Dark­ness off­set by scattered candle­light, cigar­ette smoke, jazz music, a bul­letin board feathered with pos­ted ads of vari­ous hues offer­ing gui­tar les­sons and ‘room­mate wanted’ posters. Maybe an ad for med­it­a­tion classes. The writers in the den were hunched over, wear­ing black, with heav­ily rimmed eye­glasses, fond­ling little cups of espresso in between key­board strokes.

I looked around again. There’s none of that here, I thought.

Geni­uses or not, I man­aged to type a page or two about noth­ing here nor there. A couple of pieces I will look at later to see if I can take them anywhere.

It felt good.

I fin­ished my cof­fee and packed up shop, stuff­ing everything into my purple bag and then into my car. I drove the half mile home feel­ing … not as ‘writery’ as I was hop­ing to feel.

I got inside my house — the place of isol­a­tion from which I nor­mally write — and threw this down.

I hope it’s okay — after all, I am no longer sur­roun­ded by cof­fee house geniuses.

xTx blogs at Noth­ing­ToSay, poems at PIFFLE, and writes any­where any­one will read her.