The one with the impromptu cup of coffee.

Flashbacks and time travel.

Photo by Jonathan Pielmayer on Unsplash

As I mentioned in a previous Substack, I have been finding the freelance life rather lonely recently. In order to find the appeal once again of working for myself, I drag myself away from the comfort of home, on a mission to find the best working space. A change of scene, and perhaps a conversation with another adult. Even if it is a “coffee please,” then, “thank you”.

Where to work…

I have narrowed my two favourite work spaces down to the library that is north of where I live, and another library to the south. There are of course some lovely coffee shops to work from, which I do love also, but I can’t do that two or three days a week as the money I am earning will be spent on finding a place to work. See what I mean?

So the library is a good option. It has desks and comfy chairs and I can listen to the chatter of visitors or the staff as they rearrange the books or answer the phone.

Where we live is almost exactly half way between the two different libraries. Ten miles north I reach one, eleven miles south to the other. Both a similar drive. One I can reach by bus if I wanted to.

The southern library is my favourite at the moment. It is a bit more modern and warmer. It has long windows that let in light and views of the colourful trees outside. The office chairs are very comfy here too and you can spin around on them when no-one is looking.

I am trying to visit this library once a week to work. It is usually my most productive day. And as it turns out, not just to get work done…

The cup of coffee.

One morning, as I was walking towards the entrance of the library (which I should have said is located in the town’s leisure centre), my mind buried in the days ‘to-do’ list, I happened to look up and did a double take as I thought I recognised the person in the distance who was also heading towards the leisure centre doors. She was pushing a pushchair and also wore a look of ‘I recognise that person’. It was a friend of mine that I only see now perhaps twice a year. She has a one year old son but our timings in life are different, meaning we don’t do baby groups together. She is in that stage of life while I, sadly, am past that.

We smiled with delight at this lucky turn of fate, that we should bump into each other on this particular morning and at this particular time.

Sure enough, after our hellos, she told me she was off to a baby movement class. I so wanted to join her instead of sitting at a desk and working. I wished I was standing there too with my baby in the pushchair and that we had a morning at movement class together before going home for lunch, an afternoon nap and playing with plastic toys.

I walked up the steps inside the building towards the library and settled myself not at the desks, but at one of the side tables where you can watch people coming and going. It also was near the entrance to where the babies class was taking place.

It was all too familiar but not my life now. I saw the mums, grandmas and one dad starting to congregate outside the door waiting for the class to start. I recognised the sideways glances, in the hope of starting a conversation with another adult as you also cooed over your gummy mouthed baby. There were nappy bags bursting at the seams with all the paraphernalia that comes with parenthood. Some babies were being carried in their mothers arms, one confident toddler held her grandmothers hand while swinging her legs backwards and forwards. My friend was amongst them. This was her group, not mine.

When my son was a baby, we went to a brilliant group called Sing With Me led buy a wonderful lady. Some weeks I wasn’t really in the mood, perhaps due to a rough nights sleep or my son was being grizzly. Some times I looked around at the friends that went to the group together and felt sad I wasn’t part of their inner group. Again. It was timing. But we loved that hour of singing, shaking out our sillies and blowing bubbles together. When his sister was born, she joined in too and he would proudly show her off.

And just like that, in a flash of musical notes, our singing group days are behind us. My youngest turned four last week and seems to have grown up over night.

---

I sat and continued to work while the baby movement class took place. The doors were shut but I could hear the music and the oohs and aahs as parents encouraged their little ones to love the experience.

Once the class was let out, my friend came to find me and asked if I would like a coffee before they had to head off. I snapped the laptop shut and said “of course”. Over coffee, my friend fed her baby pom bear crisps, half of which were made soggy and spat back out. A beaker of water was offered and after a tiny sip flung onto the table. For that twenty minutes or so where we sat and chatted, I was back in the baby world. Some days I miss it dreadfully and muse over the thought of having another. It is a firm no though. Other days I am grateful that we are past the sleepless nights, the teething and worry. No more nappies to change and we can all sit at the dinner table and eat our meals together without too much of it ending up on the floor.

I also feel slightly robbed, as so many others do, that when my third and final baby was born, we were in a lockdown so there were no baby groups at all. I didn’t know my last visit to a group was going to be my last one. I wonder how I would have felt if I had known.

A week and a half after this encounter and the impromptu cup of coffee, I was back upstairs in the library squirrelling away on the laptop, when I heard two voices I thought I recognised. I strained my ears as the voices were drifting up the stairs. Yes, it is them, I thought. Again, I abandoned my laptop and ran down the stairs and sure enough, my mum and dad were just on their way out the leisure centre, looking just as surprised to see me.

Cue another impromptu cup of coffee. Turns out working in the library has been more fun than working at home. I wonder who I will bump into next time…