I’ve picked up a habit from back in my journalism days at UF. My first writing teacher there challenged us to become observers finding the interesting story in our day-to-day surroundings. In one particular exercise, she tasked us to leave class and go walk around campus to find a story. The direction was simple: observe and listen. 

My eavesdropping took me to a Starbucks located on campus where I sat comfortably notebook in hand, phone put away, and simply listened. What I found was way too good. I happened to sit by two professors talking about students in their class, in particular, a young male teacher who opened up about relationships and temptations from outwardly flirtatious female students. It was fascinating to have such an unbiased look into their world, which I would never have known without being aware of what was going on around me. It was a completely unfiltered look into their experiences.

Since then, the eavesdropping habit has never left me. It’s not something I do on purpose to violate anyone’s privacy, it’s more like an app that runs automatically in my brain. Whenever I’m in a public space alone working, somehow I can pick up on the most interesting, revealing conversations in a room.

Penny for your thoughts

This week, I was at one of my usual spots in East Asheville, Penny Cup, working by myself when I realized I was suddenly in the barista’s conversation.

She’s the usual barista who greets me on my many visits here, always smiling. Her skin is a creamy milky white which compliments her honey-colored hair well. Despite seeing her regularly, as I write this, I realize my lack of attention to detail as I can’t place where the piercing is on her face. I know it’s visible on her nose or chin, but I just can’t recall. She’s a bigger-boned woman who moves with grace as she serves us our weekly coffee, which always seems to get cold too quickly.

She was speaking to her friend from behind the counter as she prepared an order, I’d seen him before. He comes in often. The last time he was there was the week of Thanksgiving and both of them were discussing a movement to change Thanksgiving to a more general day of gratitude, due to the grizzly history behind the holiday. He’s a heavier dude with brown wavy hair reminiscent of men’s grooming from an older era. That day, he was wearing a captain’s hat, the likes of which you’d see on Popeye The Sailor Man. That’s new, I thought. Its intended ostentatiousness immediate, the hat was at odds with his entire outfit, which entailed a casual plain gray sweater and board shorts.

Real talk: stress and money

Their conversation was about working multiple jobs, Ashevillian debt and the way they deal with stress. “Most people get busy,” I heard my barista say. “But I minimize everything and stay alone with my plants.”

I’m impressed at her self reflective tendencies, they made me think of my own. I certainly don’t lock myself in a room with my problems or my plants. I am a part of the former group she mentioned, the ones who get really busy all of a sudden when there’s pain to be felt.

I wondered about stress and finances and all the complicated things I’ve been told about money from my parents and my upbringing. Money wasn’t something that was spoken about. It’s not polite to ask, I’ve been told. It added a shroud and mystery to money, which didn’t seem to protect anyone’s dignity. In fact, the only benefactors (whether intended or not) are the people paying the salaries. If none of us talk about money, we won’t ask for more of it. The haves and the have nots places reinforced with decades of fiscally polite conversation. I like that it’s becoming more widely accepted to be frank about money, especially being in debt… which most Americans are in. It’s diminishing the shame and paving a way to mitigate it.

Asheville life

A lot of locals work a few jobs. I’m well aware of this from my past conversations about “the Asheville tax,” a term playfully poking fun at the fact that living in Asheville comes with a price: no decent jobs and wages too low to afford living.

Yet the people keep coming, myself included, because Asheville is special. Though taxing its citizens by making it difficult to earn a living, she gives back in equal measure. We get to live in the mountains amidst a growing population of conscious folks who want to do right by humanity. The Smoky Mountains harbor wisdom and peace in the celestial bodies of rock that have been here far before us and will endure far past us, accumulating sage knowledge along the way.

I then realized the captain left before I could catch the conclusion of their conversation. Rats. With no other choice but to stop procrastinating, I got back to work… the same work I’d been successfully finding reasons to evade: my edits. It’s a thankless part of the process, my own personal tax on choosing the life of a writer.