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There is so much going on inside the average person.

It’s true — some days I can see it.

The bus driver wishing he was at home, sipping coffee and watching ESPN. Or the Food Network.

The barista wishing he was doing what he was doing in Italy, where people wouldn’t pester him to make everything “extra hot.”

The businessman on the corner staring enviously at the bike messenger.

The woman smoking outside my building and wishing she was inside. Or outside. In Madrid.

There are so many stories, so many dreams, so many hopes, so many disappointments… so many thoughts stealing minds away from the details of everyday life. Even the man in line ahead of me ordering a muffin — is he thinking about what it would be like if his band in college hadn’t broken up?

Would he be here, in a suit too tight for his frame, looking bored with a skim-milk latte in hand, or would he be in frayed jeans with frayed nerves from the reverb at sound check?

Is my bank teller working up the nerve to say that she’s in love?

Was that convenience store owner a doctor back in Iran? Did that old Irish man ever live in the old country? Is the woman who runs the crepe shop really from France? Is the guy in the elevator from Newfoundland missing the moody darkness of his native ocean shores?

Has that kid with the dog lived anything beyond life on the street?

Are they irritated by stereotypes and assumptions? Are their hearts speaking a language that contradicts their outsides?

Do they wish they could leave these jobs and roles and histories behind?

And can anyone see me dancing in my head and writing novels with every fresh cup of coffee that meets my lips? Do they know I see the world in shades of lemon and robin’s egg blue?

I wonder about interior lives every time I see someone with a faraway look.

And sometimes, I get that look and escape into mine.

That’s where I can write poems and sing arias and wrest the exotic from the ordinary. That’s where I stop mourning the disappointments and let dreaming take hold.

Where I can sleep, where things are easy, where life is simple.

And yet complicated in the most beautiful way.