GIRL IN A CAFE

San Luis Obispo didn’t promise much. The guide book actually seemed to imply that it was probably “a bit dull” and this was despite it being a university town, which are generally rather lively and interesting places on the whole.

Still, that guide book was aimed at a rather racier set of circles than I usually move in, so perhaps for them it had seemed to be rather lacking in the general sense of awe and wonder the more iconic of American cities seem to possess.

Certainly the elderly lady volunteer at one of the state nature reserves seemed to have liked it when we told her of our intended destination that day. She described it as being far enough from both L.A. and San Francisco to have so far avoided being tainted by either, and I kind of know what she was getting at. Maybe the wisdom of those with a few years on the clock is something I’m starting to appreciate more and more as my own warranty expires, but I really should learn to trust their judgement more.

After all, we only intended to sleep there overnight anyway, and then planned to get the hell out of Dodge come the morning, so the general lack of excitement on offer seemed to be just what we were looking for, and so our plans for the day remained much the same as before, with a couple of extra stops which she recommended added to them.

Anyway, after our journey, the tale about which I can share on another day, as we approached this supposedly dull little town at sunset, our expectations were rather low which meant that it all came as rather a lovely surprise to find out how pleasant it actually was as we drove along the main drag with the deep orange sunset behind us, trying to spot the name sign of our preferred choice of overnight accommodation.

So why had we chosen to stop overnight in such an unpromising place? Well, one of the main advantages it had was that it wasn’t San Simeon, the only other place we’d ever stopped at in that area after our similar trip to the area however many years ago it was now. That particular little clump of Motels that served Hearst Castle had proven to be one of the lowlights of that trip when we very quickly found out that there was pretty much nothing else other than the Motels in that cluster of buildings and had consequently been “treated” to a less-than-appetising meal that evening in the alleged restaurant attached to our Motel of choice.

Having decided to spend a long, languid day driving down Big Sur, (oh, now I’ve gone and spoiled the surprise...) we needed to find a place that was at the southern end of it, and, as we looked at the map, San Luis Obispo seemed to fit the bill splendidly.

So, as I mentioned, we drove along the strip and found one of the Motels that was recommended in the guide book and checked in after a long and enjoyable day on the road, and settled down for the evening. The beloved was feeling unwell and went to sleep early, and so I was left reading the various brochures and guides that were left in the room for the use of visitors and found out a great deal more about the little town we had found ourselves in and it all sounded rather lovely.

Now, I’ll grant you that such information is not likely to be unbiased about the assets of the town it is written for, but it managed at least to persuade me to investigate further and, come the morning, I suggested that we spend some time exploring the town just a little before we headed off towards our next goal.

This seemed a good decision because, when we emerged from our little chalet, we also discovered what a lovely little Motel we were actually staying in, and I spent a happy hour around breakfast taking photographs of the wild birds that were being positively encouraged into the grounds by the owners. Outside the main building there were hanging a number of hummingbird-feeders and I finally got to spot a couple of them which made me feel stupidly happy after several near-misses over the years.

San Luis Obispo is always going to have a fond place in my memories because of that.

Anyway, after loading up the car and checking out, we headed downtown and parked the car on a meter before exploring the Mission and then heading into the shopping and retail district. It was still quite early on a Monday morning and very little had actually opened yet, but we found a rather excellent café which was always going to earn many brownie points with me as all of its sandwiches were named after famous authors.

It seemed to be my kind of a place.

One of the waitresses was chatting to us and was telling us about the recent visit of her Aunt from Sheffield and, just to help burn the place properly into my memory, I took a couple of photographs of the interior of the place and, over that coffee, we decided that if we are ever lucky enough to return to California one day, San Luis Obispo is definitely a town that we should like to return to.

It was only when I got home and looked at the photographs on a bigger screen that I spotted the girl in the café, sitting at that table looking like she had all the cares of the world on her shoulders. I suppose that she must have been a student working away at some project of other that probably seemed very important on that morning, or maybe other issues in her life were troubling her. America is a wonderful country but the continual pressure to be successful seems to make a great many of the people very miserable indeed for much of the time, and that seems to be written all over her face as she studies her notes with such determination.

I don’t even remember her being there that day. Perhaps sometimes people become so very self-absorbed that they just stop drawing attention to themselves and the rest of us stop noticing them. This, of course, is when we are at our most vulnerable, but I hope that she had friends and family to support her and see her through her troubles. Another, more confident seeming student back at the Motel had managed to intimidate me away from toasting my toast, but this one seems very different to her. I look at her and hope that her Monday got better, but I also had to be reminded that even the most confident of them only seem confident, and extreme overconfidence is sometimes the best defence mechanism they’ve got, because they’re quaking with fear on the inside.

Which, of course, we all are.