I'm sitting an a coffee shop at the moment, working on some homework before going to a dance lesson. At the table across from me had been sitting this older woman. She ate just a bagel, first tearing it up into smaller peices. She put creamcheese on each peice, then laid them out evenly. After each piece (2 or 3 bites a piece) she'd wipe her lips and check her mouth in a small, hand-held mirror.

She savored each bite, like this was the one pleasure she allowed herself on Sunday afternoons. I saw no ring on her finger and I wondered if her hand had always been empty.

After she left, a family sat down, a mother, father, grandmother, two daughters, and a son. All of them defined completely by their realtionships to each other. Each member of the family part of a whole beautiful person. They were all happy to be there, to be with each other.

It used to make me feel odd to eat alone, but I've gotten used to it, and often now prefer it. Eating in public has never been my favorite thing (too many ways to make a fool of myself: spilling, dropping, slurrping, dribbling), especially when I choose things like a chicken salad sandwich that I know will fall out of the bread, and french onion soup that has cheese in it that clings to my chin.

But despite my recent grey moods of late, I laugh at myself when I dribble chicken salad onto the plate, and when the cheese clings to my chin. Maybe because it's because I'm eating alone with strangers. Maybe its because I like being unreachable (I forgot my phone at home)and self-sufficient.

I go through cycles of being able to be happy alone. Its always a good sign when I can do this well.

I'm going dancing in an hour and a half. This is a good day.