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December 28, 2004
A little social instruction.
This is how late my day started: when I got to the coffeeshop, the pastry was picked over and wrapped in plastic. Two croissants remained, lifeless and unappealing beneath shiny saran shrouds.
One of the Jordanian brothers who owns the joint was chatting on the phone while mopping up behind the counter. The fake-pine funk was overpowering, and all I wanted was to carb up and caffeinate enough to get started with the laundry. After a minute more mopping and chatting in Arabic and English, he put down the phone and approached, eyebrows raised.
"What's inside that croissant?" I asked, pointing.
He looked down at the basket, then back to me. "First of all, good afternoon. I think that guy is cheese, and his friend in the corner is ham and cheese. Some coffee?"
And suddenly, I was chagrined. I don't know why I forget the "good morning" greeting when I walk in there. It could be because I'm trying to make up my mind between one thing or another, and so end up plunging into an order before I change my mind yet again.
Or it could be my East Coast upbringing. I never heard a lot of "good afternoons" or "howyadoins" while standing in line at a New York deli.
I'd have apologized and chalked it up to lack of sleep or the earliness of the hour, but I'd slept well and quite late, so I gamely tried to recover. I left a moment later with a croissant and two coffees.
If I'm going to be travelling the world -- and I am -- I'll have to encourage myself to be more engaging with people I encounter. I think I'm plenty engaged, but I flatter myself. Being a capable observer of people and places doesn't necessarily mean you have a facility for the social stuff.
My first gig as a reporter, I had to interview the extended family of a local politico who'd just died. Leaving aside the fact that it was my third day on Guam and I was still extremely jet-lagged and culture-shocked, everyone in the village of Umatac was related to "Uncle Joe" in one way or another. His death was a personal loss to everyone, which was obvious when I rolled into the village with a photographer.
Everyone looked like they were struck with the same branch from the family tree. I remember looking at the dead man's photo in my notebook and then seeing his eyes, his nose in the faces of the people I spoke to. A little overwhelming for someone with no professional reporting experience. It was the photog who initially got the ball rolling with my interviewees. I'd walk with her from one small home to another as she knocked on doors to capture a town's grief.
After two of these visits, I had enough resolve to approach these strangers and talk to them, but it wasn't second nature, not at all.
So, a thank you to the fellow at the coffeeshop, for reminding me that "hello" is always appropriate. A little eye contact's never killed anyone, and neither has a smile.
Posted by Your Protagonist at December 28, 2004 02:18 PM