A Scene From a Cafe

Friday. A day off. A knitter sits quietly in a sunny cafe, up the back, close to the kitchen. It's early morning.

She's waiting for her pot of tea.

She sees that a woman at the door to the kitchen is gesturing to her. The woman is older, not quite grandmotherly, but older. She is wearing an apron.

Pointing to her own neck, she calls out in a thick accent, 'we love your shawl!'

The knitter is wearing her dark brown Forest Canopy Shawl. She smiles.

The woman from the kitchen comes a little closer and says, 'Is it knitted? Or crocheted?'

'Knitted!'

'Really? It's beautiful!'

She calls out to someone and another woman of similar age comes out from the kitchen.

The first woman says to her friend, 'See! You just had to ask!'

The knitter tries to pick their accents. Not European. Maybe Spanish? Portuguese?

They come closer and without being asked, the knitter takes the shawl from her shoulders and hands it over to the women who coo and gush.

'This is so beautiful. So delicate. And perfect for autumn.'

The second woman says, 'I want one of these for me! It's light. Good for necks.'

There are questions that follow. How is it done? What is it made of? And soon they must return to the kitchen and keep on with their work.

The knitter takes up the sock she's got with her and shortly one of them comes back out to see what the item is. The knitter explains and the woman admires it before running back to the kitchen and calling out, 'She's making a sock now!'

After a while, the knitter has to be somewhere else and as she leaves, her friends in the kitchen smile and wave. She walks out into the brisk autumn morning and feels so glad she has a lovely, light shawl. Like the woman from the kitchen said, it's good for necks.