Every table at Marrioner was filled. I had walked to the restaurant in the next village, partially because I was too lazy to cook and partially to celebrate the extra hour I (and the rest of Europe) were given as a gift today.
I've never minded eating alone in a restaurant, in fact I enjoy it, finding I pay more attention to each bite than when I am engaged in conversation (although I love that too and it isn't an either or). Eating alone gives me a chance to people watch.
A young couple with a boy, so young he needed two pillows to reach the table, entered. They produced a silver box about the size of a tissue box that held crayons, a miniature car and a rocket. The child was content. Although he looked askance at his father's mixed salad, he wolfed down his share of their pommes frites and filet des perches.
Next to me two Swiss matrons discussed their children and grandchildren. They were dressed in matronly style in wool suits that spoke of quality and timelessness.
A young couple entered with a white haired woman, dressed immaculately in brown slacks and a brown striped sweater (grandmother of one of them?). She laughed as she pointed to the blue French street sign, Rue Andre de Citroen, one of the restaurant decorations that includes street signs, advertisements for car races and license plates from all over.
They helped seat her and the young woman carefully tucked a green napkin in the neck of the old woman's sweater and then cut up her meal that was served in an extra large bowl.
The three talked with the same sharing as the other young couple with the little boy. When the old lady grew restless, the woman with her brought out a small stuffed animal.
As I walked back to Corsier, I wondered if she lived with the young couple or is she were in a home for the elderly. Had they just taken grandma out for the day?
I will never know.
When one people watches, it is bad form to go up to the person being watched and ask for more information, so imagination has to suffice.
I would like to think when they dropped the old woman off at whatever home she was staying in, she would remember her day out with people who loved her.
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3 comments:
I love eating alone in restaurants too. That slightly uncomfortable feeling of being self-consciously alone and a woman throws me more solidly into my own head. Yes -- people watching is one result for me, too. But the other is writing. Some of my most successful poems have come out of such dinners.
Coincidence. Les Marroniers was certainly full to overflowing yesterday at 13:00. We drove on to Yvoire,
plein comme un oeuf, and no parking spaces, on we went to Nernier, closed. Luckily she remembered a place near Chens-sur-Léman, La Petite Sirene at the port of Tougues. Excellent, and wasn't it a beautiful afternoon?.
I have my suspicions that the old lady might not remember her afternoon, but the warmth of normalcy and kind attentiveness will linger and hopefully bring her a good night's sleep.
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