Day 11

I made a commitment to myself to read and follow The Artist's Way, a course for creative recovery. It was time to read chapter two and I was having a hard time focusing at home. I decided to take my book and go to the co-op to read.

Roman law refers to the commons, or Res communes, as those things common to all, spaces and resources that belong to the entire community. In Moscow, the co-op is that kind of place. There are tables situated at the front of the store for sitting, studying, socializing or eating. You need not buy food to occupy a table, all are welcome.

The co-op is a great place for people watching: there are college students hunched over glowing laptops, small children eating cupcakes with fancy swirled frosting, vagabonds with their belongings stuffed into worn backpacks.

It was mid-afternoon when I arrived at the co-op, book in hand. I ordered a tea and a gluten-free cookie. I didn't want to buy the whole package so they disassembled it and sold me just one. I chose a seat facing the east wall.

Behind me were two men who looked to be in their late 50s. One of them had a ponytail and splotches of white paint on his grey button-down shirt. I could hear their conversation and it pulled me from me reading. They were talking about All the Pretty Horses. Ponytail guy thought it was overrated. I drifted in and out of their conversation. Later they were talking about watercolors and I gathered that they were both artists.

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed two young men, talking, debating really. They went back and forth, arms flailing, faces strained. The words "public education" rose up like smoke signals from their exchange. I admired from a distance the way they seemed to navigate passion and civility.

A uniformed police officer came through the door and several hands went up to greet her. Ponytail guy shouted a joke about the price of coffee at the co-op and the need for an arrest. She laughed and said that's exactly why she was there: "Coffee."

I was suddenly filled with a sense of belonging and everything seemed right with the world. Just a few hours earlier I was watching a news story about the massacre in Tucson and now here I was so firmly grounded in this place I call home. For this moment, I was absolutely safe.

In The Artist's Way, Julia Cameron talks about creative recovery as a process that begins with recovering a sense of safety and then a sense of identity. For me, both are situated in a sense of place.