Autumn and the art of being human

I cycled into town today to post a book. I love cycling, and I love autumn, at least when the weather is like it was today – drowsy and warm, and smelling of mown grass and earth. I cycled along the twittens (Sussex word for alleyways). The sun fell down through the trees and landed on the ground in small bursts or shapes like open mouths. The cycling and the yellowness of things – they made me glad. I was so in love with the speed and the sunshine that I cycled along the pedestrian-only bits too. There was no one walking there.

But when I got to the Post Office, I was not glad. Here’s why. There was a long queue and the person who was second in the queue was looking at her phone and not moving up to a more conventional second-in-line position so the queue was even longer. There was a big gap between her and the person at the check-out. This made me twitchy. Added to this, there is another counter in our Post Office for travel-related things (you might have this in yours). But if no one needs anything travel-related, this counter operates like the other one. People join a single queue and wait, either to be called to the main part (which has two counters but almost always only one cashier) or the Travel one which is a little bit to the side.

There was already someone at the Travel Counter when I arrived, waving a passport around and having a discussion with the cashier that didn’t look as though it would end any time soon. The man was wearing one of those panama hats that people wear on holiday. He was obviously getting in the mood.

The rest of us were not in the mood. The man being served at the main counter kept looking as though he was finishing up and then, just as we’d give a collective sigh of relief, he’d whip something out of his pocket, and keep going.

But this was nothing compared to what happened next. Someone came along the stationery aisle (our Post Office is in the back of a WH Smiths), gave the queue a cursory glance and then stood at the Travel Counter behind Panama Man!

Our heads all whipped round really fast to see if she looked like a traveller. I have to tell you, Reader, she did not. She wasn’t holding any documents; she was holding letters. In other words, she held or wore nothing that hinted of imminent departure. Most telling of all, as we looked her up and down, our eyes narrowing, a flush crept across here face and neck.

And then – brace yourself – more people started coming and joining the Travel Counter queue. They also did not look like travellers. They clearly didn’t know the rules, or were choosing to break them. I could sense the outrage in our queue, the main queue, the PROPER queue. The two men were still at the counters. Literally nothing was happening.

Then two things caught my attention. Firstly, the woman on the phone at the front of our queue looked up, acted surprised that she was even in a queue, and walked off. So we all moved up and that made things better. Then I turned to see that the person behind me was a nun. She was smiling at me with big, brown eyes from under her wimple. She looked so relaxed, it made me wonder if she joined queues for fun. I smiled at her back. I noticed she looked amused by the whole queue thing and not in the least annoyed. The woman was a hub of tranquillity.

After thinking about her for a while, her amusement and tranquillity somehow transferred themselves to me. I said to myself, Deborah, you’re not in a hurry. You have plenty of time to people-watch in this queue, which you love. Stop being a grump.

We humans are fascinating, aren’t we? We get upset about things that don’t matter and we don’t get upset about things that do. We get annoyed with other people for breaking rules, even unspoken ones, but we can usually find ways to justify our own rule-breaking.

What that nun was did was to remain her own person. She didn’t get annoyed. She didn’t let the actions of others steal her joy. She just watched and smiled. Perhaps she was thinking, We humans, we’re so funny, aren’t we?

After that, things sped up. I got to the front and paid to post my book. I left the shop and cycled home in the sunshine.

When I got to the pedestrian-only bit, I got off my bike and pushed.

Sun still fell down between the trees. The air smelled of ripe fruit. I am blessed to be alive on this day, I thought.

Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed this, you might enjoy my books. You can find out more about them on the Books tab.