Category Archives: mysteries

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The Almost-Empty Panera

empty Panera
A peek at my dark side…

BETWEEN SEMESTERS at OSU, the Panera on High Street is empty early morning. Lucky day for me! I have my pick of tables.

I’ve dropped Wally to visit with a fellow CLL-er and come with my laptop to wrestle with a writing challenge. It’s a toughie.

I get myself set up – everything positioned just right on the table. You know what I mean.

In comes a college-age girl, alone, but talking her head off and wearing earphones, apparently carrying on a conversation with someone somewhere. She looks across the restaurant, then chooses the table CLOSEST to me and sits in the chair FACING me, talking virtually nonstop while eating a breakfast sandwich (which is not a pretty sight).

In this moment, I sense I am turning crabby. (This is the dark side I referred to.)

The BIG Question: WHY does it take a full 15 minutes of wondering why in the world she didn’t sit somewhere else before it dawns on me I can move? I mean, really people, sometimes it’s just that easy.

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It’s Mine…what are they doing there?

TODAY AT THE LOCK I saw two young men with cameras and clipboards walking around the lock keeper’s house in a steady rain, stopping to jot things down and snap photos, then hurrying to protect their equipment from water damage.

I wanted to ask.
I wanted to put on my Tilley and go through the rain and ask.

See how much I’ve taken possession of this place that has captured my imagination, to the point wondering what they are doing and feeling they have no right to do it without my knowing?
Silly.

I knew what I’d say.
I’m a writer who comes here often and I’m currently writing about the house (not true) and I can’t help but wonder WHAT IS HAPPENING? Is it being sold, renovated, knocked down?

I don’t.
I don’t put on my hat. I don’t get out of the car. I don’t ask.

But I also DO.
I do see how I’ve taken ownership. I do see the depth to which the metaphor of the neglected house has connected. I do begin to wonder whether what I’ve already written is just a toe in the water.

There is nothing quite so motivating
as seeing a subject that inspires disappearing!