Sometimes, I need a diner.

Just the other day, I went to a diner. Yeah, big surprise. Right?

But I went because I needed to go.

I went because I needed to be surrounded by the sounds that I love. The sounds of spoons stirring sugar into coffee cups. The sounds of thirty-odd conversations happening at once. The sounds of food cracking and popping on the grill. And the sounds of kids begging dad for a candy bar before they go home.

I need these sounds. I need them so I may reconnect with my reasons for writing, being, and living. When I worked at my uncle's diner, I had to do the hardest job I ever had to do by that point. It did something significant to me. It still does and always will.

I was 17 when I worked at the diner. Young enough to learn hard lessons. Old enough to carry the resolutions for the rest of my life. Because I was in a diner when I learned those lessons, being in a diner today both reminds me of, and reinforces, those lessons.

Maybe when you're in a diner, a spoon hitting the floor is just a spoon hitting the floor. To me, it's a little bit more. Everything there is a little bit more. Which makes the place, as a whole, a lot more.

And in a way, when I leave, I'm a bit more than I was before.


Good writing . . . and good dinering.