The booth by the window

"For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them." — Matthew 18:20

Tuesday morning and I am in the booth by the front window at the diner on Main Street, which is where I have been most Tuesday mornings for longer than I care to count.

The waitress is Linda. She has been here eleven years, which makes her new by my standards. She brings me coffee without asking and she brings it in a white mug that is heavier than it needs to be, the kind of mug you could set on a fence post and it would not blow off. I like a heavy mug. I do not trust a cup that feels like it could float away.

The plate glass window faces Main Street and from this booth I can see the post office and the awning over the hardware store that was my father's and the stoplight that takes longer than it should. The town is not busy on Tuesday mornings. It is not busy most mornings. But there are people moving and I like to watch them move.

I used to come here with Maggie. We would sit in this booth and she would order the same thing I ordered, which irritated me for reasons I never said aloud, and we would talk about nothing for an hour and it was one of the best hours of my week. The booth is the same. The coffee is the same. Linda still brings it without asking.

I ordered eggs and toast. I ate slowly because there is no reason to eat fast when you are alone in a booth on a Tuesday morning and the light is coming through the window the way July light does, which is to say it is coming through hard and bright and it makes everything on the table look like it has been placed there on purpose.

A man I did not know nodded at me on his way to the register. A woman with a small child waved from across the room. I do not know her name but I know her face. The diner is full of faces I know and faces I almost know and that is enough for a Tuesday morning.

I left a good tip because Linda deserves one and because Tuesday mornings are worth paying for.

Lord, thank you for the ordinary table.

Ruby keeps a collection of prayers at her kitchen table. You can find them here.