true story -- epoch

Windows are amazing: they let you see things that aren’t visible. Warmth, for example. You sit outside a coffee shop in the middle of January for a few hours looking at the spidery tree branches silhouetted against the faded indigo sky and watching the vapor from your breath mingle with the delicate curls of smoke unfurling from strangers’ cigarettes, and then you look inside and see all these cushy armchairs and couches and all these people lounging comfortably on them and this yellow light creeping up these rich, orange-y walls and you think, “damn, if I were in there, my feet wouldn’t be frozen.” But then, a perfect stranger asks why you and your friend are sitting all the way over there and invites you to come join his group, based off nothing more than a loose acquaintance – a friend of a friend of your friend – and now you can’t feel the cold anymore.

That’s sort of a lie: you’re still shivering, your feet are now not only frozen, but numb, and the loss of feeling is creeping up your legs, but it doesn’t matter as much anymore. These people – these complete strangers – are somehow inexplicably friends now. One asks you to sit next to her for warmth, not content until you actually rest your arm on her leg. One offers you a cigarette. One makes a necklace for you with tools he, for some reason, had in his car out of a bottle cap given to you by the only person you actually know here. They talk with you as equals, and laugh with you, and simply accept you without thinking twice. No consequences, no restraint, and somehow, you’re the newest member of their unspoken brotherhood.

This is why I love this place. Complete strangers, right? But you can share your life with them, knowing full well that in the long run, they really don’t care, but for that hour, that minute, that moment…well, maybe they do. Maybe it’s just the night. You know what I mean, right? Nighttime does funny things to people. You can talk about nothing but talk about it forever and have it be the kind of talk that you’ll remember for a long time as a good talk even though you’ll probably never remember what it was you actually talked about. Everything becomes more meaningful. But then again, maybe it’s not…maybe it’s just the city.

Austin is the kind of place where this sort of thing happens all the time. We are such an apathetic generation, but despite that, a stranger will sometimes open a door for you, or wish you a good night even though you had no money or food to give him, or stand on a sidewalk holding a sign that reads “FREE HUGS”. I’m the kind of person that smiles at people I don’t know, and it’s nice to know that I’m not the only one. It’s a sort of affirmation to the faith I have left in humanity.

Yeah, it’s freezing out here…but somehow inside doesn’t look so enticing anymore.