In downtown Portland's Pioneer Courthouse Square, sitting on a stool pressed up against a window at the Starbucks, you look through the glass and notice that here in Oregon people don't seem to mind a light rain. One in four people are without an umbrella, and they are walking at a normal pace. You notice too that the daffodils are in bloom.

The hours of rain have left the city wet and muted, not bright at all. You're glad to take this break indoors, a warm coffee in your hands. You're even glad to have arrived with neither book nor computer. Without them, there is nothing to do but watch the drizzle and people. You quickly imagine you are watching a silent movie.

Portland, Oregon (seen from the Starbucks window)

An armored car pulls up in front of the Nordstrom across the street. Out descends a man with empty bags and a bulletproof vest. He disappears into the store. You wait for his return, imagining the mind of a man who works for an armored car company. Does he imagine robberies, like you're imagining one now?

Before he returns with the cash, an ambulance followed by a fire truck blocks your view. They've parked on the Starbucks side of the street and only now do you notice the TriMet light rail train beyond the glass windows to your right. A passenger is slumped in his chair. Soon he is laid on a stretcher, moved through drizzle, and departed in an ambulance. You wonder what ails him. The armored car is gone now too.

A middle-aged woman in Mickey Mouse pajamas walks past The Oregonian newspaper dispenser and past your window. Tightly embraced in her hands and pulled close to her chest is a paper coffee cup. You wonder if she is lonely, or just cold, or something else altogether.

Here comes a man in an electric wheelchair, walking a dog. And now here are three young women in business attire, walking past a homeless-looking man in a blue mask who says something that makes them smile and then even laugh. You wonder what he said.

Hundreds will walk or roll past your window in the course of two hours. No two will be alike, and all will be silenced by the thick glass. You'll wonder what it is like to be deaf, to live in Portland, to have been 150 years ago where this Starbucks is today. Back then the square was home to a public school.

The rain continues to fall lightly outside. Time is moving and you have a flight to catch. You open the door and step back into the wet and the noise and the movement, and you walk past the glass window.

Joel Carillet, chief editor of wanderingeducators, is a freelance writer and photographer based in Tennessee. He is the author of 30 Reasons to Travel: Photographs and Reflections from Southeast Asia. To learn more about him, follow his regular photoblog, or purchase images, visit www.joelcarillet.com