Monday Musings: Texture
“The mundane is not meaningless—it’s the texture of your life.” - @jeysjournals
I came across this quote while I was scrolling TikTok. The writer was attempting to inspire their readers to journal about their lives through a column format similar to Substack. As I read, this line made me pause and go back to re-read. To propose that the mundane is texture implies that the mundane is what adds interest–that the mundane is what draws someone in.
This idea brought my mind back to a morning I experienced over 14 years ago at a Panera Bread. At the time, my husband and I only had one vehicle, and he had been called in to work on a day that I had plans with a friend. Thankfully, his work was happening in the same city I had planned to meet up with my friend (we lived about 40 minutes away), so we were able to make it work. The solution was for him to drop me off at the Panera Bread closest to his work to wait until my friend could come pick me up. I am a knitter, so keeping myself busy in a place with coffee and people to watch would be no problem for me!
So my husband dropped me off, and I sat there at my table with my coffee, knitting away, and people-watching as I waited. One person in particular made an impression on me that morning, and I have not yet forgotten him.
An older gentleman ambled over to a small table with a newspaper under his arm, a plate with his bagel in one hand, and a coffee in the other hand. He sat down and proceeded to organize his table space. He placed his coffee cup in the far right corner of his small table and his plate near the center. He pulled his newspaper from under his arm and set it down to the left, lined up parallel to the edge of the table. Next, he pulled out his reading glasses, placing them on top of their soft case. All things on the table were organized neatly.
I kept watching as he got up to grab a fork, a knife, and an extra napkin. He returned to his table and proceeded to put each item in its own place on the table as if he had done this hundreds of times before. All preparations were done slowly and methodically, and as soon as he finished dressing his bagel, he opened up his newspaper to start reading.
This whole process was so intriguing to watch. I wondered as I sat there if what I had just observed was his routine every day. Does he make every breakfast a ritual like so? Does he live alone? Is this what his family has seen him do every day? What sort of story does this man’s life tell? I have thought about this man many times since that day, imagining possible pasts for him, wishing I could go back to ask him about his story.
When I read the line above, “The mundane is not meaningless—it’s the texture of your life,” it resonated with me. On that day, I became a witness to the texture of this gentleman’s life. I saw his slow, practiced, everyday ordinary, and it pulled me in. That beautifully mundane texture made me want to reach out and “touch”—to know more.
Isn't it the real, ordinary, everyday, small things that we love most about people?
