At least I tried to.
It shouldn’t be too hard to just sit there and wait. I’m a mature adult. Over the years, I have spent many hours in restaurants patiently (most of the time) looking out the window.
Why? The short answer is that my idea of being on time was different from the person I was meeting. But that was before smart phones. Choices available while waiting were limited back then so we made the best of it. We just sat there.
And here I was in a restaurant booth with my left hand thinking my eyes wouldn’t notice it snaking towards the pouch on my belt. With every inch of my hand’s sneaky slide towards the phone, another restraint cable snapped in my mental fortitude of resistance to stop it. The battle was on.
Engaging in animated conversation with my server might help.
A pleasant young woman, studying to be a pharmacist. She politely answered my questions about things that were already quite obvious in the menu. How many toppings on the lunch pizza? Does coffee come with it? I have relatives who go to the bathroom while I order my food. They find it too painful to watch another episode of Twenty Questions.
It isn’t easy to wait for someone.
I started out okay. Elbows on the table. Hands under my chin. Eyes scanning back and forth to take in the people around me. An older couple in the corner booth. Probably married 40+ years. Can’t see his face but she is speaking quite animated. Gentle features, she doesn’t look stressed, so probably okay.
Family of four in the booth next to me. Looks like a mother and three older teenagers. Some conversation while placing food orders then perfect calm and silence as everyone shifts to their phones.
They certainly didn’t notice my sterling example of just sitting there with external self-discipline and actively breathing in my environment. Nor my increasing internal angst as I fought the battle to restrain my hand from connecting to my phone.
A quick text is always helpful.
I was slowly losing the battle. My dilemma felt like Clint Eastwood in a Western movie where his hand was poised above the holster, twitching with anticipation to draw and shoot. “Make my day.”
Only, in this case, once the connection was made between hand and phone, it was my resolve to abstain that would hit the dust. And my phone would thank me for making its day.
At that moment, my former student sent a text to say the meeting ran late but he was on his way. It is always helpful to send a text. Don’t leave the person wondering what’s happening. I quickly put the phone away and could relax again, at least for a few moments.
Back to my server.
It didn’t take long for the tension to rise agin. Maybe it was the caffeine after three cups. My server, a college student majoring in pharmacy, came by with more coffee. So I started talking.
I told her about recent research that affirms the value of caffeine. That 3 or 4 cups of coffee a day is okay. But I didn’t know about 5 or 6, which was the point where I usually began to get nasal congestion. At least, I liked to blame it on the coffee overload.
I also told her that my wife did not support my rationale since, in her experience, I was congested (and blew my nose) anytime and much of the time. She is probably right.
At this point I realized that I probably sounded almost feverish and nonsensical. Words just tumbled out of my mouth in all directions. Thankfully, she remained calm and carried on. And, with that reprieve from my battle, I was able to breathe, re-focus on looking out the window, and take in my environment.
Just then, my student arrived.
Image is everything.
Seeing him enter the restaurant, I quickly assumed a pose with head tilted slightly to one side, as a mentor or guru might do. I gazed pensively out the window as if working out some indefinable problem of the universe. Thus, the image he would see of me was a reflective, self-composed person sitting with relaxed hands folded loosely together on the table.
Whenever I think of myself as a humble person lacking in vanity, I just have to remember such occasions where I spontaneously wanted to give a certain impression to another person.
It can get worse in retirement.
Perhaps more so for men, something happens in retirement that is less than pleasurable. Power and authority are gone. People ‘don’t care’ what you think about an issue. It isn’t difficult to feel on the outside looking in, isolated and even a bit lonely. A new challenge to figure out ‘who am I?’
Back in gear again.
And, suddenly, I wasn’t just sitting there. My student was here. I knew who I was in that moment.
Within a few minutes, we were right back to his time in college then worked our way through the years since then. There were successes along his journey but also disappointments and significant loss. Through it all, he was now forging an exciting new path for the future.
And here he was, wanting to spend time with me. Someone he thought had made a positive contribution to his life. Someone he did not want to leave behind in the rear view mirror of time. Someone who still had something worthwhile to share that he wanted to hear.
Needless to say, I rose to the occasion.
It was his decision when our time was done. Having a busy professional career, he had to get on with his day. I left the restaurant with a joyful heart and a spring to my aging step. It was satisfying to be considered relevant again.
Strength for tomorrow.
Days like that remind me how relationships of positive influence transcend the sands of time and retirement. And, in the long scheme of life, they are more significant than the transient power and authority of those immersive work years.
Coming back for a solo coffee the next day, I didn’t need to wrestle with a hand reaching for the phone. Gazing out the window (pontifically, of course), I relived times since retirement when people said I had a positive role in their lives. It felt good.
That day, I had a different server. Taking time out from the window, I asked if he knew about the new research concerning benefits of caffeine.
After all, I couldn’t just sit there.