Etymology: “ennui” and “annoy” both started from the same Latin idiomatic phrase, mihi in odio est “I hate or dislike” (literally, “for me it is in odiousness." The phrase was reduced to a single verb, inordaire “to make odious” which served as the source of the Old French verb inodiare “to make odious” which served as the source of the Old French verb anoier “to annoy, bore.” This verb was borrowed into English around the time of the Norman Invasion as anoier, our “annoy” today. Later the Old French verb developed into ennuyer from which arose the noun “ennui” in modern French. This noun acquired the sense “boredom” and was then borrowed again, this time in a new form, probably in the 18th century to distinguish the complex apathy of the upper class from the simple boredom of the lower.
MIHI IN ODIO EST
Sleepiness
hangs over
the early morning
coffee shop crowd.
Is it loneliness or
ennui or plain
not giving a damn?
The robin’s egg blue guy
is going to or coming from
a hospital operating room.
Is it something he has seen
or doesn’t want to see
pinches his full face?
The leather jacket swaggers
deep green aviator glasses
above a Hollywood smile.
Is it for selling or buying
the smiles and good mornings
pass between patrons?
Stolid body rising from transparent pumps,
stiletto heels out of place
click-clacking under faded Barbie skirt.
Is the bold coffee relevant
on the way maybe to a stripper pole
somewhere anywhere?
And then I saw it...
an American flag pin
at the very tip
of her collar
just below
the blue butterfly
tattoo...
and her lips,
and hips
and undulating
other parts
moved on out
into the morning.
The first friend, whose questions I always respect, asked about the title of the poem after he had already found background information, i.e. the Latin idiom... How does the phrase fit a coffee shop crowd or my reaction to the coffee shop crowd? Remember... I call my BLOG of photographs and writings “The Way I See It.”
About the poem: Obviously I could have made a simpler title like “Ennui” or “The Coffee Shop.” The idea came “off the top of my head” followed by three days of stewing about what I wanted to say... about what I “see” in the coffee shop I visit at least once a week at seven o’clock in the morning... about the class system at work even at a local coffee shop. I like watching people... and the change in people from the time when they first come into the coffee shop obviously sleepy, bored, hurried and harried and even annoyed at having to go out into the world in the morning... until they leave five or ten minutes later having stood in line with everybody... every kind of body... pushed by the coffee shop line into interaction of maybe just the smallest sort... and they go out more engaged, less under a cloud of ennui, less annoyed, . Some of what I saw as I sat in a corner alone on a Wednesday: an almost certainly homeless raggedy man going repeatedly to the trash barrel just outside the door to find paper cups with little bits of coffee left in them, always lifting the cups, neck back, to drain whatever was in them; a tired guy in clean but wrinkled blue scrubs; a midnight cowboy kind of guy with sunglasses even before the sun was up and brightness was a problem and his very deliberate smile for anybody he could get to look at him seemed an immense sadness; a man in woefully unsuccessful physical transition from having a male body to having a female one; a forty-something, maybe even fifty-something woman in the highest stiletto transparent heels I have ever seen, short-short tight-tight skirt, blouse with collar and on the right-side tip of the collar the kind of flag pin that pink-haired ladies on their way to a D.A.R. meeting and fundamentalists think politicians are supposed to wear to demonstrate their love for America. Anyway, that's where it came from... right out of Starbucks at the trolley stop in Mission Valley.
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EARTHFAIR in Balboa Park happened again this year on a perfect day. The predicted rain came after fairgoers had gone home. I was there to help register people to vote.
A Hari Krishna group celebrated their spiritual enlightment while just down the road glum Christians warned that judgment is coming soon.
It might be interesting to know... or not... what these people are all about. The man who calls himself a street preacher wearing a sandwich board of absurd messages says he is giving the world a chance to be saved. It would be interesting to know what in the life experience of these grown men led them to their dismal belief in an angry, vengeful god who is out to get hapless "masturbators, fake Christians, revelers," and "liars."
FROM THE RIDICULOUS to the sublime... a matter of opinion.
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