My lunch time walk is probably the quietest and best relief I get during a crazy work day. At around half past noon, I step out of the building into the summer sun and quiet breeze. My way to Rebecca’s Café snakes around two large brick-red buildings standing quietly in the sun. Isn’t it strange how a building can hold so many noisy floors of people and still seem to terribly quiet and calm from the outside? That’s what I like most about buildings. They can drive you insane from the inside but from the outside, they are still strong, quiet and stubbornly unchangeable. Quite comforting, in fact.
The path is lined with even slabs of concrete that have been laid out under the trees, beside the hill and along flower beds. One can choose to walk on the tarred road too, but that stops one from looking at the flowers while walking past the flower beds or looking up at the woods to see a red robin. I did in fact see a red robin one afternoon. He was sitting on a tree, all red and fluffed in the sleepy afternoon air.
I always make sure I go out to Rebecca’s by myself. That’s the only way I can be left alone with my thoughts, my footsteps and the outside world. And on sunny summer afternoons, there is nothing better than getting a few minutes by yourself with the woods sighing to themselves as you walk past.
I sometimes meet an occasional person or two – someone who works in one of the buildings and has chosen to take a few minutes alone. I don’t really mind walking past these people. It only involves a slight reducing in my pace, a glance and a smile. Maybe even a nod. On days that I feel sociable, I exchange a couple of words about the wonderful weather or the colourful flowers. All said, there is a certain niceness about that involuntary smile one exchanges with strangers. It means nothing at all to either of the smilers, but it is the purposelessness that makes it so charming. The people I run into are mostly elderly gentlemen and you know how they are. They love smiling at young women who probably remind them of their daughters, so there is often a “honey” or a “dear” attached to the greeting. I wouldn’t be able to call them anything in return, so I return an extra-nice smile.
Rebecca’s café serves the freshest salads I’ve eaten and the hottest soups I’ve sipped. Gaunt old Ken with the white apron has known me for a while now, so when I walk in, he quietly stands by the glass cases, arms crossed over his chest, looking at me almost challengingly and a smile that says “so…what are you going to do today?” He has reason to, since I am that alien woman who walks in and asks for three chicken fingers, a scoop of mashed potato and sometimes an unusual spoon of rice! That makes it one bit from each item on the menu. So another extra-nice smile at Ken, and we are talking about the tomatoes and the shredded chicken and how the cooler makes the apple juice too cold and how the cookies wouldn’t bake on time.
The other day I couldn’t get out of work at the regular time, so when I did get there at 1.30, Ken had saved a box from the Special for me. “Chicken cordon bleu with rice, dear. Ah saved it fer yah!” he said, not even asking me if I wanted to eat it. That was the last box of food, so I didn’t have an option anyways. I decided to buy a warm cookie too, just because Ken was nice enough to not forget me.
The young girl at the counter is quite a lady, I would say. I’ve seen all the men try to catch her attention, but she is mostly too busy clinking around the cash boxes.
After I help myself to one of Rebecca’s crisp paper bags, I walk back. Now this is really funny, but I turn my food box upside down each and every single day. I walk out of Rebecca’s holding it the right way up, but half way up my path back, I realize I’m holding it the wrong way up! That only means that my lunch turns into an unrecognizable mess of coleslaw, chicken, mayonnaise, tomatoes, cabbage, gravy, sauce or whatever else I decide to buy and mix around.
On my way back, I walk by the fringes of the woods. In a strange way of bonding, each time I walk past, the woods remember to send a strong gust of wind laden with the smells of pine and on some days a couple of fancy looking birds and a few bird calls. I always look up at the trees – sometimes bare and brown branched, sometimes bursting with a white bloom and sometimes lush green, dotted with strange brown berries. An elderly gentleman once caught me almost smiling at the trees and when I noticed him watching me and I almost turned red with embarrassment. “I love them too” he said, as he walked past.
Walking out for lunch is always a different experience. But half way up my little journey back, I invariably find that some sauce has leaked and threatens to drip out of the paper bag and soil my clothes. So I end up running back - me, my paper bag, my office shoes, my crisp clothes and a quiet afternoon that ends with spilt mayonnaise.