The café
8 June, 2009

I find myself sitting in a café, looking out at ageing tarmac and metal rails, stained plants and swirling litter. There are people all around me. There is the tinniness of headphones and the insistence of a local radio station. Couples talk quickly in foreign tongues and printers beep constantly. The plastic wheels of a suitcase, the hiss of a coffee machine. The jangling of change and the snap of a door hinge. A sigh and the click of a laptop keyboard. This is not being at home.

At home, there is quiet and the dog and my music played as loudly as I like. Okay, there are noises from the street, but I can control them by closing a window or shutting a curtain. I can step over to the kitchen and fuel my brain as I will and I can sit in my slouchiest clothes, dressing for no-one at all. I am always in for the postman and I can take as personal a call as possible without embarrassment or a panicked rush for the street. I am at home in every way.

And yet. There is a paradox here. Because, at home, my mind can run as it wishes, freely, it does, uncontrollably, and I am undisciplined and scatty. I cannot keep my eye fixed on one thing for long enough and the likeable distractions are so many that I follow them all, hoping for inspiration but instead finding frustration. The dog becomes bored with my constant presence and I sometimes, shamefully, vent my irritations on him when all he is doing is following his instinct to beg for food. I become too aware of the number and variety of jobs I need to do and so worry about them, rather than focusing on one at a time to ensure that each is done in turn.

And, if I am being honest, I am a little bit lonely, after four years working in my well-appointed and self-administered solitary confinement.

So here I sit, among the noise and the smells of the outside world, wondering if that is the secret to being happier and more productive. It is the paradox of the solitude of company. It is the oxymoron of a multitude of sounds giving room for thoughts to flow and the shifting scene allowing one's eyes to turn inwards. And it is that strange force field, the biological magnetism, the eternal solace of human proximity.

I have always railed against the idea that people are better when they are close to others and that they are unavoidably drawn to others. It seems a weakness to say that you need to be near other people, that you feel lesser without. But perhaps all it means to come here, to this café, is that I prefer, rather than need, to be near other people, am happier in their presence. After all, I have muddled along well enough on my own. Maybe now I just feel I need a change.

And it must be admitted, the view of the street through the window has to be more inspirational than my blank living room wall.