Ribbons are curling and waves are kissing cliffs of moss-riddled rock when I choose to be sweeter than I want to be. A casual temptation to make people feel small or dumb as a result of them stretching out your patience exists in customer service land. A temptation that I have submitted to before in poor moments. I enjoy watching people exit the interaction with more joy than they arrived with. This takes a dance of consideration. This takes presence and attention. Six years into making people coffee and it is a dance that becomes fluid or starkly more difficult depending on where I am at in my heart.
Today I felt an exorbitant amount of spaciousness within myself. It could've been the weekend of rest, reading, and movies. Or the hours spent with the person I love laughing in each other's arms and over dinner. It could've been God visiting me in every dream I've had recently. There are a million reasons for me to beam right now but the point is that I am somewhere so, so high in the middle of all of it and I was on fire today.
There's an older couple who spend their Sunday mornings in my café every weekend. The woman is very gentle in the way she speaks. She wears a gray pixie cut and always has a gorgeous scarf wrapped around her neck. The man is clever and has something very child-like about his demeanor. He always orders a hot chocolate. I then ask him if he'd like whip cream to which he replies in that "whip cream is not for adults." This is the dance we do every weekend. Today I finished his sentence for him when I asked him if he'd like whip cream. I told him that that would just be too gluttonous, something like that. He winked at me.
When ringing up their order I asked both him and his wife their names because I can never remember, despite them both being such a beautiful pair and people who always make me feel lighter after our interaction. We chatted for a bit and they gave me their names. I promised I would remember them by next weekend. I stopped the woman and asked her if I had spelled her name correctly. She looked at me with water brimming in her eyes and said, "Yes, thank you."
Later into the morning, she strolled back into the line of people and waited for maybe ten minutes to reach me at the front.
"Would you like something else? More matcha?", I asked. She said to me,
I just wanted to tell you that I really appreciated you asking for both me and my husband's names. Even you checking to make sure that you spelled mine right. That meant a lot to me. I really appreciate people who take their time in interactions that are casual and have the tendency to progress rapidly. That takes presence. You always take your time when we're here. I wanted to thank you."
Her standing in line just to tell me that she was touched brought so much clarity and softness to my heart. I told her that I feel it is important to ask both names of people in a couple when taking their order. Often we address the man and the woman gets lumped into the order forgotten. It isn't a big deal-it's a coffee order after all, but I like doing this so that women feel seen. Even if it's small, it would make a difference to me. I'm always looking out for the tender, observant types.
The woman nodded in agreement and replied,
"I think it's intention like that that actually does something to change the world. If everyone just took a little extra time, a little extra care...our interactions with each other would feel so much lighter. I lived in Germany for a long time and I felt like such an outsider. Really alone. It's stuff like this now that means more to me than it ever did. I see you."
The graceful woman blew me a kiss and went back to her booth, flipping through her book with a look of serenity all over her. Sometimes I encounter older women who in their fluidity, in their humility, in their lovingness-take me to my deepest and wisest parts of myself and something in me says, "fucking TAKE NOTES, girl." Believe me I do.
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