At The Bar By Linda Stowe
Today is Saturday. There was a point in my life when most Saturdays I would stop by my favorite bar to share a few beers and catch up on the gossip. I loved those times because they were so far removed from the life I lived the rest of the week. The bar people and the people I knew otherwise did not overlap, so it almost felt like I was living a secret life.
If you have ever spent time in a bar, you understand that the atmosphere there is different. You’re sitting lined up along a bar facing a mirror in a room with no windows or clocks. The only way you are reminded that it is still daytime is when the door opens and a flash of sunlight turns all the glasses of beer along the bar to a glowing amber. When that happens, every head turns to see if someone of interest decided to amble in that day. Usually it is not anyone of note and the expectation on our faces fades as quickly as the shaft of sunlight and we return to what we were doing.
As I sit here looking out at the sunlight, I think about the hundreds of bars everywhere with people living their secret lives.
~~~~~~~
Polly here.
I loved this piece. As a former bartender, I saw the other side of this. But Linda described this perfectly.
Yes. Those people. Sitting there at the bar, sipping or slurping their drinks, whatever the case may have been. They were there getting away from the “rest of it.” A place that was different from the everyday grind of their lives.
But the thing that struck me the most was the last line. “People living their secret lives.” Whether we are sitting at a bar or sitting in our homes, we all have our secret lives.
Each one of us has thoughts that only we will know. We all do things that are private and unto ourselves. We have our hidden secret parts of us that no one else will know.
All of us. Everywhere.
