Eating Alone...

I was flying home yesterday from doing a writing workshop in Rochester, New York and had a couple of hours to kill in Philly. Philly is NOT my favorite airport as you always have to shuttle bus from one terminal to the other on a bus with drivers who have virtually no sense of safety as they whip around the runways dodging those little carts and drivers towing luggage to large airplanes backing out ready for take off.

One of my bus rides was so harrowing I considered if there were alternatives to getting to the other terminal on my return home. The woman packed the bus with more people than is humanly imaginable. She kept yelling at me to move away from the door and the steel post that I was planning on hanging onto...what she did NOT seem to realize what that there was NOWHERE to go!! As people jammed in next to me I found a loophold that I could grab above me...waaay above me, but it was better than nothing. The thing is when you are holding a loophole you get swept side to jerking side as this woman whipped around a tarmac that had no boundaries. At one point was supposed to stop at the corner of the terminal where there was clearly a STOP sign posted. She proceeded to ignore it and careen around the corner with great speed almost picking off a man on a tractor. They both laughed as we narrowly escaped grazing each other. Ahhh...I thought. THIS is their entertainment. Playing chicken on a blind corner with a busload of stupid people versus the luggage guys. C'mon. Would I ever get off this bus alive?

And of course I did...but I was sweating and all stiff from desperately trying to stay on my two feet!! And so I was thinking more about this bus ride than what I would do with a two hour layover when I found myself in the correct terminal with nowhere to go. You see I was so early that my gate was filled with people for another flight to Vegas and it was packed! I knew I wanted something to eat. I quickly spotted an restaurant with sit down and wait service and decided this was better than the alternative..to get something take out and eat it off my lap, spilling it all over me as I had done on the way there!!

I sat down at a table in the very back of the restaurant so that I could look out and observe and not be observed. I sat down and thought about the fact that I was here, alone and ordering wine and pad Thai. It made me think of the many times I have been out to eat and noticed those "poor souls" who were eating alone and how I would feel sorry for them. Pi-shaw...what a major lesson in projection that is!! I was here sitting alone and reveling in it!! I was nobody to feel sorry for! I was out the world travelling...which I LOVE and had just had a great day of incredible conversation with a brilliant colleague. No, I was not the sorry lady at the back of the restaurant, but the confident woman who had finally grown up!! Imagine that...about to turn 45 and more than comfortable taking up a table just for myself!!

It made me wonder just how many of those people I had "felt" for were feeling just fine with their solitary eating and that I was the one who would have been uncomfortable. We choose so often to put ourselves into the position of others...at least I do as a self-admitted people watching addict...but with that we bring ourselves and imagine how "we" would be feeling. Perhaps all of my observations over the years are simply projections of me and who I am and where I am and what I am experiencing at the time. And can you think of anything more egocentric than that? And so I wondered how others would respond to the idea of eating alone and the responses posted on facebook were all over the book from scary to peaceful to "out of my comfort zone" and it makes me wonder...just how different we all are and as much as we all want to think we are alike and part of this human experience we call life...that we really could be not more different!!

And THAT is why I love to travel! It takes me out of my life and puts me out into the world to consider others and their lives. I am fascinated by people and how they work and operate. As for me...I will look carefully the next time I see someone sitting alone at a table and wonder...what are they really thinking or feeling....

Just thinking...