Another Café Miracle

     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. 

Get into Heaven Free

    There's a river. A big river. An infinite stream of living exhale. Unbound by thought. There's an emptiness in the direction that calms the lethargic heart. An absence of worry. Lukewarm, not of this world. You arrive on horseback. They made you shave your head on the way. You can't take anything with you. Not your nana's picture frame of her father. Not your shame. Not your favorite drinking glass; the one with the slender rim. There's no cheating the game or bending the rules. Rules are no good to the water when the water is the law. You'd be ruining your own dessert. You always liked reading the last page of the book first. 

    Empty-handed and bare-necked, you come to the edge of the bank. Imagine the feeling of a slow fall inward. Oncoming weightlessness. Being rocked into a dream as an infant. The face of every person you have ever loved shining in your eyes. Reaching for your arms and finding seafoam instead. A sadness in this experience creates a need to hold yourself. Grab all that you can. The nothingness comes. 

    The river takes you down, the day is new. You do not wonder what comes next because something in you knows. Down the river, kissed by every drop. Gazing directly above you, you see a lightshow of stars and a milky rain falling down. You were beautiful on Earth because you were kind. Remembering all the moments of deep recognition that love is so real that it is mortifying when you can't find it. Shouldn't it always be found left lingering on pillows from the night before? Or on the check at the restaurant? On the eyelids of resting children? In a well-loved fireplace? 

    Do you wish you could journey backwards? Do you think you'd be still this time? We look our end in the face every day, but it hardly changes us. You see misery go unchanged. Hopelessness tended to, pet like a lap dog, even. All of your life, all your embraces, every filthy thought, every smile to a stranger going by. 

    Now there's only you and the river. You, the river. It was all very touching. You might even do it again. 

    

Closer Everyday

     The large, west facing windows on the top floor of my gym display a serene view of three large pine trees. They tower over the highway like monk triplets and sway with the changing of the seasons. I sit with my yoga mat towards them and take in the beauty in front of me. For a moment, I find myself envying the trees. No agenda. No expectations. No reservations. They grow closer to heaven everyday and have no idea. Even if they were aware, they wouldn't feel any particular way. That's just their dharma. 

    I biked home in the dark, wet night. The sun sets early now and the rain is a lengthy visitor. In my gym clothing and my skateboarding helmet, I ride through thick and sporadic rain drops, squinting with blurred vision. The roads are quiet on Sunday nights so I feel the bandwidth to channel the three trees until I reach home. Sopping wet, with quietness in my heart, I say to the air, "I am so glad I get to be me."

    Aliveness is flying through the downpour, your sweater heavy with sweat, water, coffee grounds from the work day. Aliveness is knowing that the trees and you are far from separate forces. Aliveness is oneness. I don't like driving anymore. I don't miss it for a moment. I like showing up places smothered in rain. I went through something before this. It's implied that way. 

    I've been back home for a week and I feel more in tune than ever. Every instant feels like a divine flow. My friend told me yesterday, "If I died today, I would be happy with the way I was. I was good to people. I was content with how I spent my time." What a feeling to have at twenty-five. To have that thought when meeting death is something we dream of the whole time we're awake. And right now, I'm thanking each tree that I'm awake. Something in the spinning of my bike wheels confesses to me that the trees aren't the only ones growing closer to heaven everyday. 

Steak

    Sentimentality is the way I drive my spiritual car. That's the road I'm always dancing down. The path I can't shake with a heart so fat. I like being that way. Everything counts and, yea, that's probably better than everything being nothing. Although that's a simple way to go on and be. You probably wouldn't cry much. Nothing would rattle you like the roadside attractions rattle me and my welling eyes. So I'll take this way over simplicity. 

    I'm feeling clear these days. Maybe it's traveling solely by bike again. In a car I screamed and that's sure good for me but on a bike I'm one with the elements. If the rain wants to eat me, it'll feast. If the sun wants to burn me, I'll roast. If I want to scream rolling down a steep street, the autonomy is there. 

    Maybe it's the women around me. Just the other day, I worked out with my girlfriend, we laughed until our faces were beets, and then she took me home, put mousse in my hair, and fed me steak. I killed a spider for her. That I can scream about. That's the feminine activity I always begged Buddha for. 

    It's funny getting what you want and thinking, "why?"

    

Public Transport Miracle

    I like to think people on the bus wearing earphones are listening to the same song as me. I like to pray for innate connection like this. A human tie so deep, we don't even have to know of its existence. I enjoy imagining a world where our hearts are beating in identical rhythm. It could be the same song. 

Angel in a Saloon

     An angel that knew me when I was twelve graced my city this week. She fluttered about her long, linen-like wings and blew kisses over the heads of every person out walking. I got a free mattress from a historically beautiful woman who makes stained glass art and has renaissance moles on her face. We folded the thing into a taco and shoved it in my trunk. No one wanted to drive behind me. 

    In the saloon, one sweaty and warm night, we danced crazy in cowgirl boots to the punky country music. An old hick found me later, smacking his gruff hand against the back of my shoulder saying, "I wish you'd lend me sum that energy, girl!" The linen-winged angel laughed, two beers deep. 

    I've been thinking about how painful it can be to love somebody so much. It's the curse of the earnestly tender and if you're reading this, I hope you and this ache are well affiliated. I wonder if I will die young. I keep telling myself that I've made it this far. I'm sure I can keep this thing rolling. Sleeping for less than five hours is bad math and I'm learning not to do this. I've been thinking a lot because I can smell fall. There's so many warning signs. 

    For the first time in my life, I have an ear infection and it's reminding me of the fact that I can still experience new things. I was sad at the clinic when the doctor pulled up the anatomy of an ear and basically laid it on out that mine was fucked. That's having a body. I could combust at any moment but instead an angel is gracing my city this week. I'll put up with everything sounding like it is underwater for even a glimmer of that. Everyone is showering her in love and beaming because of her and there's so much to sing about. Sometimes there's too much. 

Anything Could Happen

 Anything could happen and it could be right now. The choice is yours to make it worth while. 

    I remember the first time I heard The Clean's song entitled "Anything Could Happen'', off their 1985 album Compilation, I was sitting in a friend's car parked at a spot we frequented in Fullerton, California. The spot was private, moody, and near the woods. We would sit in the car, sometimes for hours, listening to music and talking about our favorite philosophers. This song stuck out like a sore thumb then and now as I board my plane to England. 

    Sitting impatiently in the isle seat, the song acts as a mantra to keep my mind off of the feeling of being held captive on the plane as well as a centering reminder that every journey I take is up to me. The way I feel in new places. Just how open am I going to be? Anything could happen. I spent all ten and a half hours in the air wondering what I'd feel like on the return flight. 

    Laying in my light blue night gown( the one with the flower embroidered neck), my dear friend is beside me sound asleep. After three years, we have found our way back in the saddle together and it is grandma's pie. This country is hilly, green, and Eden-esque, We walked through a two hundred year old library that had been bombed during WWII. You could see the damage on the books that remained. It made me think about the undeniable fragility of our objects and how these items, if lucky enough, can endure the damage of war. Some people are like that as well. 

    Being far away from home feels unusual inside of my heart. I love where I live and in this moment, in this full-sized bed, it feels really uncomfortable being away from what I know. My city is like a stone in my hand that I must occasionally cast unto still waters for my chance at experience in exchange. The first time that I left my city after only living there for a handful of months, I visited New York and I was absolutely desperate to come back after a wimpy seven days. What a beautiful feeling of confirmation that you're in the nest you feel warmest in. What luck. It's a good thing I like dancing with the girl that brought me. 

    This night in particular, we grabbed drinks with a group of friends that my friend had met while living there. They were Polish, direct, and beautiful in the way that everyone is beautiful when you live on different sides of the planet. Where I live, people tend to be passive so meeting them was like a rooster at dawn. Shocking me out of my sleep, out of what I'm accustomed to. Thank God. No one should be too comfortable while being alive. Death is our well-promised nap before folding back into the jitter of humanity. One of the girls was very touchy and sassy. I took a liking to her after she told me my tattoo was "cliche". When we parted, she rubbed her cheek against my own three times and made me promise to see her again before going back to America. And I did. The goodbye was hard then, too. I don't know if I ever really meet a stranger. 

    My friend is a special girl. Very bright, adventurous, and open-hearted. All the things I like in a person. We met at a party when we were teenagers. She was the only other girl there amongst the beer kegs and devil-marked high school boys. There she was like the virgin Mary. My saving grace in the sea of frat. I respect her because she will never stay in a situation that doesn't seem right to her. She doesn't look to me like one of those people that gets 'stuck'. She's so poised yet comedic. I wonder if she sees herself this way. If she sees the stark dignity I see. I wonder if she sees the extent of the unadulterated goodness inside of her own heart. She'd be very smart but very blind if she didn't. 

    Whenever I travel, I often will meditate on what the child in me makes of it all. When I was a little girl, I did not dream of traveling, or getting married, or going off to college because I couldn't see a bright future for myself. The farthest out I could see was the end of the week. Anything further than that and my adolescent mind would go blank. The future that my young brain could not fathom now contains both worldly and spiritual delights. Delicious foods, markets to lose yourself in, and the dazzling faces of people going about their destinies. It's all so absurd so I just try to live joyfully. 

    The discomfort of travel makes arriving juicy and worth the effort. My first choice of location would never be in a flying ship thousands of miles into the air but I do what I do because I love this world. We're living in alien times. I'm here praying and wishing largely. In the Fitzwilliam museum in Cambridge I sobbed with great devotion at all of the paintings of Mary and baby Jesus. I don't know if that's normal. On the plane ride returning home I sobbed. The people next to me thought that the turbulence was getting to me but I'm just in love with God and where I live. That's between me and the ether, though.