In the Tea Garden

I wrote with my friend Deb today. Over the last few months, our cafe sessions have dwindled down to nothing so it was good to do free-writing with her again, but I wasn't exactly fired with inspiration. My writing muscles have become flabby through lack of practice. We went to Julie's, a coffeehouse in Alameda. We sat in the garden. Deb ordered tea and I sipped a lavender-flavored lemonade while I munched on an excellent Greek salad. Two young women at the table next to ours asked us to take their pictures. They handed me the camera. First they posed in front of an olive tree; then in front of a shed decorated with ceramic masks of the sun and other garden knickknacks. Not that there was any sun. It was a gray day, warm enough to sit outside in my hooded sweat jacket yet cool enough to be glad I was wearing it. We sat at an old picnic table under a faded umbrella. A breeze stirred the leaves of the potted plants and wind chimes clinked melodiously as we wrote. Moving the pen across the page relaxed me. The chatter of the women next to us also soothed me. Deb coughed and continued to write while I read over entries that I'd written months before, re-acquainting myself with the "self" who wrote this stuff. She's not exactly a stranger, but she's someone I'd forgotten about for a while.