The café on the corner of the building… if you stopped at the red light in either direction, you’d see it. Hung lights wistfully showing you a warm glow. Empty chairs begging to be filled. Imagine meeting your friend here, talking for hours. You could imagine it. You did imagine it.

I trusted them with all my belongings when I’d go for smoke breaks. I struggle to trust others in life, but this feels safe. Their menu isn’t so impressive if I’ll be honest, and they cater to the sweet tooth more than the people who like something spicy with their tea and coffee. Yet, cafés represent magic. This one was magic too.

One day, after it had been weeks of me showing up with my laptop, working on a project I was exhausted working alone on, the barista asks me as I place yet another latte order, “How do you type so fast?” I smile sheepishly at first. It’s a big city. You don’t expect conversations like this. I am brought out of my lull.

I answer honestly, “I’ve just been doing the same thing since I was child — coding. It’s a part of your skillset, so you just kind of learn it.” Her curiosity turns into a little frown.

Maybe I was too honest.

“I’ve been trying. I type a lot at home. But I am not able to pick my speed up.”

We’re strangers, but somehow, I believe in her… she sounds so genuine. She needs this. Before I take my receipt away, I want to tell her that she’s doing a great job. Consistency means she’ll eventually get better at this. And I do tell her. And I smile. And she smiles.

This little interaction made my day. She has dreams. I still wonder why she needed to learn to type so fast. But I hope she gets there. She will.

When you don’t work in a big office, you don’t get to see fifty people’s faces on your floor, let alone the five-hundred passing you by in the building. Sonder. That’s what it felt like. Snapped out of your passive reality, the mundane routines that you don’t think about, how your hands and feet move on autopilot — this breaks all of it.

Big city, yes, but I will never forget it’s always the people making the city what it is.