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The following entry makes me realize that I'm one of those people who posts obscure things on their facebook status, like:
"Coffee, tea, love, peace, sun= Great day." Or "Friends, cuddling on the couch with my cat on the fire place with wine=awesome." I'm guilty. Sue me [Or sew me.... Sue me. That's how you spell it. I think]. I'm an aesthetically oriented person; heavily influenced by my surroundings and I'm kind of right brained.
There are very few things in life that I love more than Sunday sunny fall mornings in Cambridge. Young couples with their children, old couples bickering during their traditional Sunday morning coffee, the sun-
THE SUN!
And the breeze? Awesome.
Why isn't it awesome in Beverly? It's awesome there too, but in Cambridge it's like 5 times better. Maybe it's the red brick, maybe it's all the action. I don't why. It just fills me with an incredible feeling that I'm in some cool movie and that music from the Garden State is playing in the background, especially when the leaves are yellow and green and red and amazing. I wish there was something concrete I could tell you about the reasons why this feels so glorious to me and alltogether cathartic--catharsis, yes. That's the perfect word to describe it. There's nothing concrete about it; atleast not that I know of.
But there's something about the smiley, touchy barristas at 1369 and the otherwise, odd combination of people, reading everything from mystery novels to archeological studies to New York Times Best Sellers to Elmo coloring books. There's something about Inman Square and the fact that they have their own journal where locals write essays and poetry (The Inman Review); the fact that the tiny yoga studio-art gallery-jazz club-concert venue-book club locale is right next to it. Folks are sitting, standing, waiting for buses and people, and living life together. It's vibrant, it's diverse, it's beautiful and it's what life is about for me. Community.
1369 is like a family's klitchen during breakfast, except with music in the background. The barristas playing the hipster version of your mother offering you breakfast, "Some yogurt, honey?"
Except these hipster-versions-of-your-mom know that you don't drink milk because of the hormones that are pumped into the cows or something and you that you want granola with your yogurt.
The cafe-goers next to you, your brothers and sisters, except you actually want to talk to them and find out why they're reading Three Cups of Tea and what intrigues them about the newspaper this morning.
It's a cooler family than yours and you can leave the table without asking for permission if you get indigestion. Uncle Jim isn't there to embarass you. Instead, you find the guy with the flower-print short who is talking to himself rather endearing and an essential part of your quirky cafe family.
Even more so, since the Lily Pad is right next door-as we previously established-and you go to yoga there with three of the same people that attend 1369 every Sunday morning, you may see them at an art gallery or two and you feel that you are part of something. You're part of this painting here with jazz, intellectualls, hipsters, mom's, dad's, the other dad, weird-but-beautiful-crazies, and you feel beautiful in it.
This morning the barista with the oversized glasses. Ok. one of the baristas with the oversized glasses said to the other one,
"We were just using how you work as a metaphor."
"Shottily?" says, the guy with the "Old blood, New Skin" tattoo---
Or was it "Old Skin, New Blood" tattoo?
Anyways...they laugh and Glasses-guy adds, "Slow and ineffectively?"
I thought about the fact that this barrista's "slow and ineffective" work-style is a laughing matter and something that everyone is ok. with. Maybe I'm totally missing what was meant and taking this brief conversation out of context. But in so far as it makes me feel better about my life, I feel that this is a worthy move.
Because I would describe my work ethic as shotty, slow and inefficient and because I usually cannot laugh about it. Instead cry about it. A lot. I get nervous and when confronted with work that is hard I often get this overwhelming sensation in my lower back, causing me to feel like going to the bathroom. But laughter....never thought about it.
Laughter says it's OK that you are this way. The Blood-skin-tattoo guy took his time to make my latte. He had 4 cups lined in a row before mine to fill. His latte-art was-kind of non-existent. Much like my own work-whether it's school work or work work. But instead of taking my time I start to believe that I'll somehow make it better by frantically rushing and then, dropping pens and tripping over my shoe laces. I should laugh like he did. And I should take my time. And if someone has to wait. Then so be it. 'Cause I'm doing my best.
:) So there. I'm done.
