Today, I went to one of my favorite places for lunch. It is a bakery type place and you stand in line and then carry your food out to one of eight, round tables, meant to seat four. Today, all were full, except for two of them, with one woman at each. I asked one of the women if I could share her table. She said, "No!" Okay. The other woman then offered. We didn't talk though we might have, but the place is communal enough and I like to sit and look at the sky and she was reading her book on Weight Watching.
I think I was more startled by the abruptness of the no than I might have been if I hadn't just finished reading a book I recommend, Tsotsi by Athol Fugard. In the book, a woman, at first, does not want to share her breast milk with a baby who is starving, but when she does, she sees that her pump is primed and milk keeps flowing and there is more than enough for her baby and this other baby. The book is startlingly beautiful and I highly recommend it. I suppose I was filled with the thought of milk flowing between all of us, and so, I was startled that one person would need a circular table meant for four. It is still curious to me, and I came home to look for a quote about what it is to eat alone, and I cannot find it, but I will keep looking.
I hope your day feels communal and full. I love solitude and yet if I am out in the world, I am out in the world. It makes sense to me to be where I am, and so it is for me, in this moment, and most possibly, the next.