In the café, a motley assortment of furniture: mismatched wooden kitchen chairs, a leather arm chair worn through in places to the horsehair, old school desks, ancient sofas.

On the wall faded maps show countries and boundaries that disappeared decades ago.

That table reminds her of the one they’d had at home when she was a kid, square with flaps on opposite sides that you pulled out for birthdays and Christmas.

She chooses the green velvet loveseat. The springs have gone and she sinks further down than she expected.

The coffeemaker launches into action, grinding and thumping and hissing. Used to be you didn’t need ear buds when you made coffee.

All around, chit chat and music and twinkly lights although it’s not Christmas. A church pew, old steamer trunk, an ancient tv, old whisks. Stuff that should have been tossed out years ago.

Because that’s what it comes to, she thinks, taking a sip of her latte. Nostalgia is all very well but everyone else is moving forward and you simply have to keep up.

New Day, New You! Today – it’s the future! Her mind notes the phrases. After all the years of popping random thoughts into pithy (and at the low moments, not so pithy) phrases for Magneret’s fridge stickers, bookmarks and sundry uplifting items, it’s hard for her to break the habit.

She picks a dried flower posy out of an old milk bottle on the white picnic basket near her elbow. Dusty petals shed on the floor. She hastily shoves the posy back in the bottle.

What’s the point of keeping all this stuff? To remind you of the past, when things seemed so much simpler?

Or is it that your aesthetic is primed when you’re young so that’s what you see as beautiful? Because she does find these obsolete, useless things beautiful.

Yet many of these items date from well before her day.

Her day!

What’s that supposed to mean? The time when she was young and (presumably) beautiful? Well, attractive at least.

But why should today not be her day?

Make every day your day!

Stained glass panes in the windows – not the originals from when the building had been a church, more recent. Just touches of colour – peacock blue hearts, purple ellipses, small amber droplets.

The strip lighting on the high ceilings of the ex-church make it seem as though the café is flooded with sunlight. Not that it’s a gloomy day, but it’s changeable. Blue clouds one moment, white sky the next.

No, the other way round. Blue clouds! Heavens, her mind must be going! Life is a blue cloud!

*****

Thanks to the Daily Post’s Discover Challenge: The Things We Leave Behind and Cee’s Black and White Photo Challenge: Older Than 50 Years for the inspiration!

Please note that all material on this site, except for comments made by others, is ©Susi Lovell.