In case anyone wonders, I took down the Dormasha I had written for the W3 prompt. Even though it was based on a front desk conversation, it was too dark. I often process hard things through writing, but I’m learning that I don’t necessarily need to share them here 🙂

The truth is that most of the material I get for any of my writing is from front desk conversations. I have met some of the most interesting people just through the slow building of relationship by daily greeting people and asking how they’re doing.

Yesterday, a young man who comes to swim, and who has been telling me bits of tidbits about his family and job, leaned on the counter and asked me if I had read the news about where he works. I had not. So he told me why his place of employment had made the front pages.

I told him that I often avoid the news. “Depending on what news source I go to, I feel like I’m in two totally different countries,” I said.

“It’s the politics of teams,” he replied. “Politicians used to be the people who could work out compromises, but now it’s sport. It’s the Yankees vs the Red Sox.”

He couldn’t have picked a better rivalry. The Yankees and Red Sox have spent the better part of a century vilifying each other.

“We don’t look for common ground anymore,” he continued. “Take gun control…” and my mind immediately wandered off to Wyoming.

Honestly, I don’t remember what he said next. I had lived for a time in Wyoming, though, and people there take their gun rights pretty seriously.

I thought about them. I thought about the time we house-sat for a guy who had a ranch, and he had told us about the gun in the hall closet, in case … I don’t remember … coyotes? He failed to tell us, however, about the arsenal in the spare room, or the loaded handgun in the nightstand of the room we had put our young son to sleep in — thank God, I checked that drawer!

In upstate New York, the gun owners that I know are responsible and safe. Primarily, they hunt deer.

I don’t personally own a gun or want to own a gun — and I actually don’t want to enter the whole debate.

After talking with the guy who brought it up — and he had headed off for the pool — one of the custodial staff walked by. I knew he was really big into gun rights with tattoos that bear witness to his strong beliefs.

“How do you feel about background checks?” I asked him, and was surprised to hear that he really wasn’t that far off from the other man. And he was very knowledgeable and well-spoken on the topic.

Can I just stop here and say — this is why stream-of-consciousness writing produces blather in me. I write myself into a hole. I wanted to tell you that I get my material for posts from conversations I have — and now I’ve just stepped into controversy — but I’m going to leave it here because Stream of Consciousness.

Here’s some safer blather — three times a week, this little guy comes in wearing a backpack that’s bigger than his torso. He was chattering up a storm yesterday about school.

“How old is he?” I asked the mom.

“He’ll be three in a few weeks,” she said. “He’s very excited about school because he watches his brother get on the bus every day.”

It made me smile.

I think I’ll just leave you with that.