Tag Archives: coffee shop

Postcards

Paying. Forward ….

Friday morning I took my car in for scheduled maintenance.

“You gonna wait?” check-in-guy asked me. Said there was only one car in front of me. Shouldn’t be that long. 

Found myself a quiet nook at the dealership. Grabbed a coffee from the machine. Hopped on their wifi, started into my work day.

About 15 minutes later, check-in guy rolls up. 

He: We can’t open your hood.

Me:  I’m sorry … what? 

He: Yeah … problem with the latch release. Hood won’t pop. 

Me: I put in washer fluid a week ago. Worked just fine.

He: Yeah, there’s no tension in the cable. Nothing happens when you pull the release. So we gotta diagnosis it. It’ll take about an hour … so it’ll be an additional $160 (on top of the maintenance costs I’d already signed up for.). 

Me: I’m sorry … for what? 

He: To diagnosis what’s wrong.

Me: I thought you said the hood won’t open. 

He: Yeah. 

Me: Isn’t that what’s wrong? (coffee was still kickin’ in)

He: Yeah, but we have to diagnose what’s causing it.

Figuring it’s hard to do maintenance without, you know, opening the hood, I was like … whatever.  

My residual head-shaking was only starting to ebb, when check-in guy rolls up again.

Holding papers. 

He: Yeah, so the latch release cable needs replaced. We have to order the part. Also … it’s hard to get to, and there’s a chance, worst case, that we’ll have to bust the grill to get access to open the hood. So, worst-case, we’d have to replace the grill and the badge, too. 

Proceeds to show me the ‘best’ case … pointing to a really large dollar amount on the paper. 

“And here’s the worst case,” he says … pointing to another really large number for the ‘grill-busting special,’ which would be in addition to the first large number, which is on top of the $160.

So they can do the scheduled maintenance, which will have to be rescheduled. 

Metaphorically, it’d be like going to the dentist for a cleaning, only for them to inform you, “First … we’re going to have to punch you really hard in the face, which may cost you your front teeth, which we would, of course, then have to replace. None of which can happen today … so you’re going to have to leave and come back on Face-Punching Wednesday. After which, you know, the cleaning.”

In literal terms, while still waiting for the dealership coffee to take effect, I learn that it might cost me north of a thousand dollars to open my hood. 

Lemme just say … it’s one of those things that’s hard to say ‘Yes’ to in the moment.

I gave myself a few seconds to let the absurdity of it dig its toes into the sand before externalizing a response … which manifested in me laughing out loud. 

Not at the hood. 

At the week. 

I was only a day removed from having a plumber out to snake the downstairs drain under the driveway out into the backyard … which failed to address the smell coming from our shower. Only a couple hours removed from making arrangements for him to come back next week with “The Thing,” which will cost insert large sum here. 

Only two days removed from the knob on our old dryer going kaput … so now, the dryer just runs constantly … so we have to unplug it between loads. 

And four days removed from ordering a new air conditioner, the cost of which we deliberated long and hard about before deciding to pull the trigger before May decides to summer. 

All of which to say … my laugh had a running start as check-in guy waited patiently for me to take his pen.

I mean … nice work, universe. 

I told check-in guy I’d call him next week … which would gift me the weekend to temporarily indulge one of my favorite past times … ignoring problems hoping they go away. 

___

I woke up Saturday morning still shaking my head at the week’s accumulations … when I gathered my things and headed uptown to the tiny coffee shop where I like to write my weekend medicine.

While waiting in a short line, I remembered another bill I was overdue in repaying.  

Couple weeks ago I invited a friend out to a storytelling event in the city. We hadn’t seen each other in I don’t know how many years. Used to work together. We’d gotten back in touch earlier this year, trading texts and even chatting on the phone. For some reason I’d thought of him that morning so shot him a text asking if he’d be interested in joining me, and was thrilled when he said yes. My son was working in the city that day, so I invited him as well. 

It turned out to be a wonderful evening.

When we arrived, I tossed my name in the hat, from which they would select the evening’s eight storytellers. I’d never done that before. I won’t call it an act of bravery because I did it as quickly as possible so the voice in my head didn’t have time to weigh in. I figured my odds were low, anyway, as the house was packed.

The evening’s first three storytellers could not have been more different in tone and topic, which is what makes such events invariably magical. When the host reached into the hat for the fourth storyteller, I heard my name called. I was so lost in enjoying the company, and leaning into my chair at the other storytellers, it jarred me. And in the few seconds it took to stand up and walk through the full house to the side of the stage, my anxiety went from zero to 60. But, I stepped out … and told a story that I was aching to tell … to the most gracious audience you could imagine.

At the end of our wonderful night, my friend insisted on picking up the tab for our sandwiches, despite Peter and my protestations. 

I promised to him I’d pay his kindness forward.  

Which I remembered just as I was about to order Cortado #1. 

“Big plate, tiny cup?” Sydney the barista asked … which cracked open my weekend’s first smile like a fresh breakfast egg. 

For context … some lost Saturday ago, I’d asked for a saucer to put under a really full cortado she’d made. She went in the back, returned a few seconds later, holding a regular plate. “This is all we have,” she said. 

“Oh, that’s perfect,” I said, as I slid the ridiculously large ‘saucer’ under the tiny cup. As I did I noticed that the plate had a few chips out of it … which made it even more perfect. 

“My life very much needs a generous splash radius.”

I remember telling her before I left that day that I may just insist on the big plate moving forward. 

Now, I don’t even have to ask. 

Big plate, tiny cup. 

Every time Sydney sets it in front of me, it makes me think of all the humans and things in this world that catch the mess of me and crowd surf me through my days. 

Like my friend Jason who met us in the city and insisted on buying beers and sandwiches. 

So after I ordered, I asked Sydney if she could do a pay-it-forward, mentioning my friend Jason by name.

Of course, she said. 

After which I sat down, tuned my earbuds to my favorite jazz station (KCSM, which streams from the college of San Mateo, CA), scribbled my weekly postcard to my daughter, and cracked open my old laptop to sift the week for its treasure. 

I lost myself in the above like I sometimes do, so a good couple hours passed before I returned to the counter for Cortado #2, which must be referred to by its given name — “Portal to Invincibility.” 

Sydney’s co-worker took my order. 

I pulled out my card to tap my payment. 

She waved me off. 

“It’s already paid for,” she said. 

I looked at her quizzically. 

“Someone paid for your order,” she explained. 

Took me a second before the morning’s second smile broke across my face.

“It was him,” Sydney said, coming up beside her colleague to explain, before turning to me. “People have been keeping it going.”

“Really?” I asked.

The coffee shop had filled and turned over a good coupla times in between my first and second order.

And in full disclosure … I hadn’t put all that much on the counter. 

Humble pebbles on the scale, compared to all I owe.

But after a week of major appliance failures, stanky clogs, and a stubborn hood refusing to open — the numbers from which have yet to stop spinning — it wobbled me.

I mean, just the tender reminder that our kindness comes back to us.

The reminder that, even when all the evidence suggests otherwise, the world is still capable of surprising us.

Sometimes it just needs a nudge.

Like us.

I mean … nice work, universe.

I took a couple seconds to let all that sink in.

To give my response a running start.

I set the record straight … that my friend Jason started it, not me.

“Keep it going,” I said, tapping my card. 

Sydney returned a minute later.

Put it down in front of me. 

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Postcards, Righteous riffs

Blanket Drop …

Re-watched all of my favorite holiday movies this season. 

Except one. 

A Charlie Brown Christmas, which we never got around to. 

Destination TV when the kids were younger, though.

I mean, Linus droppin’ the mic at the end? 

Puts a lump in my throat every time. 

It was only this year that I was made aware of something I’d never noticed in all my previous watchings. 

He drops the blanket, too.

In the climactic “Light’s, please” scene, right before he says, “Fear not …” Linus drops his blanket. 

All those years I watched it, I never noticed it. 

When a friend mentioned it to me, I got chills.

A sermon hidden in plain sight. 

Looked it up online. 

Yep. 

Apparently, the Internet’s known about this for some time. 

I asked my family if they were aware.

Nope.

Once I became aware, though, I couldn’t stop geeking out about it, asking friends. Sharing with those, who like me, were uninitiated. 

Immediately thought of my high school buddy, Bob, an animator, who grew up a connoisseur of comics and cartoons. 

I shot him a note … said I assumed he knew about this, but I couldn’t risk him not knowing. 

He, of course, knew about the scene.

Shared the wisest reply. 

“I did know about the dropped blanket thing, but I never really attached any significance to it. 

“I always looked at it from an animation perspective, where I think Linus does a lot of arm gesturing during that scene and instead of animating a blanket moving around wildly with his arms, they just had him drop it and then pick it up again when he was done talking. I think the reason I thought that was because when Charlie Brown is talking to him right before Linus goes off, Charlie Brown drops his coat right before talking with his hands. Again, I assumed that was for animation purposes.”

Brilliant insight, which Bob’s always been good for. 

At first his reply hit me like a splash of cold water. 

“A Charlie Brown Christmas.” (Peanuts Worldwide)

So … a practical animation choice. 

No sermon intended.

Nothing to see here.

Hmm. 

But just because Charles Schulz may have been more interested in easing his animating burden doesn’t mean there’s not a sermon to be found. 

Just because something isn’t true, or as intended, doesn’t mean it can’t be meaningful. 

Otherwise myths wouldn’t exist. 

Or religions, some might say.

We live in a world that would rather know how the trick is done than believe in magic. 

Not me. 

I’d rather be (open to being) awed.

I’ve learned to keep my antenna up for magic and meaning … even where it’s not supposed to exist.

Who says a perfect sermon can’t be found in a practical choice?  

Even Bob in his wisdom agrees. 

“But I guess in the big picture, it’s a much better story and makes more sense to say that Linus didn’t need security during that moment.”

We can let the blanket drop … without letting it get wet.

__

Sitting in my usual seat at my favorite coffee shop where I’m typing this, I watched an older woman, bundled head to toe for the cold, walk in to warm herself for a few minutes before catching her Saturday morning bus. 

As she was trudging back to the door with 12 warm ounces in her hand, already bracing for the cold on the other side, a familiar downtown face came in, and seeing her, stepped to the side, and with his right arm, backhanded the door open for her. 

Not the biggest fellow, he had to bend over a bit to muster the strength to brace the door open with just his one arm. 

But from where I sat, his forced hunch read as a bow, imbuing his humble act with an added reverence.  

Allowing the older woman catching her bus to pass through the door regal as a queen, nobly enrobed in her winter coat, her toboggan pulled tight like a crown.

She nodded thanks to him as she exited. 

As if to a loyal subject. 

It was a scene that neither would likely think of ever again. 

She, a bus to catch. 

He, cold hands to warm at the fireplace. 

Me, a lump in my throat for the gift of bearing witness.

It was a scene I’m likely never to forget. 

His bow. Her nod. 

A sermon hidden in plain sight.

A sweet and simple reminder to be kind where we can to those we encounter along the way.

To humble ourselves to allow the strangers we meet to walk in dignity in an otherwise cold world. 

If he’d have been holding a blanket in his right hand, he might have made the practical choice to drop it, too.

Lights, please.

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Postcards

Grace

Last time I was here, I asked for a saucer 

for my morning cup 

you know, in case I spil

l. 

They were out, so the person behind the counter

put a

BIG PLATE

under my

tiny cup, 

Which made me fall in love 

with the world 

all over again 

for a moment 

it was so perfect. 

My life needs 

a generous splash radius. 

Now every time I come in 

I ask for a large plate. 

The one they gave me today 

had a couple chips, 

which made it even more perfect. 

I told the person behind the counter 

that in my head, I was imagining a plate

 so

LARGE

I could sit on top of it while sipping from my

tiny cup. 

To catch every last

drop

of 

my 

mess love.

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Postcards

Whimming ….

Slept in this morning, which never happens. When it does though, it leaves me in a fog. Operating system has like a half second lag to it. Takes me a bit, but I manage to get the majority of my shit together and out the door. 

On an inspired whim I drive uptown to pop into Table for an espresso. Haven’t been in a while. Always good vibes to be had there. Park across the street and look left for traffic before crossing. Outta the corner of my eye, though, I spy a car parked in front of Joe’s Bakery. It’s pushing 9:30, which as any Saturday sinner will tell you, is pushing it for Joe’s.

On my morning’s second whim, I reroute and take the catty corner of Main and Chestnut, catch the Open sign still hanging on the door. Walk in and look left. See one lonely sugar donut in the case, waiting for me. Joe’s at the register finishing with a coupla customers before he walks over.

“I’ll take your last sugar donut.” 

“There’s a cinnamon twist left, too if you want that,” he says, gesturing to the other end of the tray. 

I’m not so foggy to understand that this is not a multiple choice question. 

Ask him to throw in a sugar twist so the three of us are covered. 

“Just put $3 on the counter,” he says. “You’re my last customer.” 

An honor and a blessing, I say, knowing that under the wire is more than any of us deserve.

As he hands me the bag, he says, “Best donuts in town you got right there.”

… leaving me no choice but to say, “Amen.” 

“When you see good, praise it,” Alex Haley once wrote, though I imagine he wasn’t thinking of donuts at the time. 

Or, you know, maybe he was.

By the time the bells on the door finish jingling behind me, I am convinced that I just might be their corresponding angel. Walking to the corner I see that the new deli that just opened is open. Whereupon I invest the morning’s third whim. 

Order a $2 coffee and take a seat at the long counter by the window overlooking Chestnut that, turns out, was made for writing Saturday morning postcards. 

I write to tell her how I am rolling sevens, as my tall cup slowly burns off the fog, 

After addressing the envelope, “Kindly deliver to ….” which is also the invisible note that I pinned to my shirt when I left the house,  I cross the street and finally make it to Table. 

Sit down with my cortado and crack open Jack Gilbert so he can further melt my morning.

And say thank you to and for the lag in my operating system.  

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Postcards

Liner Notes

Sometimes on weekends when I wake up at the usual time, I’ll briefly fall back asleep for 15 minutes or so. I call it my second-wind sleep. Its defining characteristic is how vividly I dream during the interval. When I awake for the second time, I’m usually coming directly from dreaming. 

Saturday morning I dreamt I was arriving at some sort of pre-graduation gathering. The parking lot was filling up, but I found a place on the loop near the entrance with ample space for me to park the white Econoline van my dream-self was rocking. While it ‘felt’ like it was high school — something about the loop — all recognizable personnel were from my college experience.

Once inside the building and entering the room where (whatever) the gathering (was) was being held, I saw a face my dream self hadn’t seen in a while. 

“Dave!” I called out to a guy I played some music with in college. I remember making some awful noise one summer shedding with Dave and a couple other guys in the TKE house basement.

In the dream Dave was wearing a Star Trek-like uniform, but in the colors of our alma mater. He mentioned he was just finishing a musical project, and was holding the physical master or some recording of the final product in his hands. He interrupted my congratulating him with a question.

“What did it sound like?” he asked me. 

I wasn’t sure what he meant. 

Asked him to explain. 

“Your drums … what did it sound like to you?”

Deep question. 

He said he wanted to mention me in his liner notes of the project he’d just finished. How super cool of him, I remember my dream-self thinking. We hadn’t played together for a couple years.

I ascribed a genuine weight to his question. 

What did it sound like? 

But just as I began to think about how I might answer, the proceedings began.

I never got around to giving him my reply. 

Dave, who played guitar (and bass), was there to accompany a choir-ish group (hence the Star Trek uniforms) providing music for the occasion. Singers harmonized a lyric, “It’s been a long time comin’ …,” and were nailing it, understanding both the assignment and the substance of the material. 

As I listened to the music, my dream self was thinking back to how cool it was that there were people like Dave in this world who care about liner notes. 

It was at that point I woke up from my second wind sleep. 

I had a morning haircut, so quickly showered and got dressed. But before heading out I felt compelled to jot down all the details I could remember of my dream and email them to my good friend Doug. 

I had no idea what motivated me to share my dream with him. 

The dream itself made no sense. It was barely a fragment. And it wasn’t even interesting. Immediately after hitting send I considered following it up and apologizing to Doug for my dream spam. 

But before I could do so Doug replied, telling me that my timing was perfect, and added a few words intimating why. I mentioned I was coming to Waynesburg and could I buy him breakfast? He said he already had breakfast plans with his youngest son and grandson, but would shoot me a note after, if I was still around. 

He did, and I was.  

And so we met at a place on High Street.

Seeing him walk in brought its usual smile and our big hug was medicine to my Saturday morning.  

And as soon as he grabbed the chair across from me, we jumped in to the conversational jazz we’ve been playing ever since we met as freshmen in the band room at Waynesburg College. The kind that just makes time melt. We took chorus after chorus after chorus … catching up and comparing notes: on family, on things we think the other might appreciate (Have you heard … ? Have you read …?), as well as the day-to-day smudge and scuff that more and more keeps us up at night (whither sleep?). Our friendship has always made space for all of it, even the messy stuff. There’s music to be found there, too. A long way from freshmen we are. 

As always we could’ve sat and talked forever, but we knew it was time when it was time. Before going our separate ways, Doug mentioned a new coffee shop around the corner that opened up across from where Scott’s Delight used to be. I asked him if it was worth checking out, and he said it was. 

Though my caffeine tank was full to brimming I stopped by on my way out of town. Ordered something sweet and carried it into the adjacent room with the tables. The interior was warm and coffee-shop cozy, the walls adorned with local art, photography and ephemera. 

Something on the wall immediately caught my eye. On a hunch I walked over to take a closer look. 

It couldn’t be. 

Ha … it was. 

Our record. 

Well, Doug’s record. 

The one he bootstrapped, wrote, and paid for the recording, pressing and distribution (such as it was) of a couple months after we graduated. He poured his full heart and bank account — everything he had at the time — into it. 

I played drums. 

Technically speaking I sang backup, too. In actuality, I monotoned on the chorus. So committedly, in fact, that by the end of the session I had earned myself a nickname: The Drone. 

The A and B sides were rock-a-billy homages to the music Doug loved and loves to this day. Of and from a time when three chords were as sufficient and sustaining to us as ramen. 

After the recording and pressing of the 45s, we got some local airplay, and, according to ‘official’ documentation Doug received from the record company, we briefly trended in one of the Scandinavian countries. I remember seeing a photo copy of some paperwork Doug received that testified that, at our peak, we were charting just north of Eric Clapton’s “Tears in Heaven” in Sweden, I think. I got the second biggest kick out of that. The biggest kick was the occasional photocopies Doug sent me of the modest royalty checks he’d get in the mail.   

Those were the liner notes that came to mind as I stared at a relic from more than 30 years ago, framed and hanging on a wall in a tiny coffee shop in the town where we met. 

I imagine Doug’s youngest son was behind its placement. 

I thought to myself how cool it was that there were still people in this world who cared about such things. 

Pondering the morning’s serendipity as I stared at our old 45, it suddenly all made sense to me. 

I knew why I’d shared my morning dream with Doug. 

Because he’d shared his with me three decades ago. 

And I also think that, deep down, I had a hunch that we’d make some music of it somehow. 

I think our morning’s conversational jazz qualified. 

Same chords as always. Different changes these days.  

As I drove the back roads home, I mentally made plans to turn in early that night. 

To give myself room for a second wind sleep, in hopes that I might bump into Dave again. 

And get back to him with my answer for his liner notes. 

“What did it sound like?”

It sounded like what it’s always sounded like. 

Like old friends making time melt.  

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saturdays

Sometimes a Place …

This is why people linger. Sometimes a place asks you to stay, to not rush anywhere, that it’s warm, and there’s the tap dancing water, and the powder blue sky, and they had the second floor to themselves. Josie felt that if anyone else came up there she would drive them away, she would throw a knife. This was now their home.

Heroes of the Frontier, Dave Eggers

Upstairs, the counter area is still very much holiday bustling, dense with people small business Saturday shopping, come for their caffeine. So sardine packed when I arrived, I had to stand in the other room while waiting for Emma to make me her perfect Saturday morning cappuccino. Upon collecting her offering, I walked through the crowded main room, all the way to the back, unlatched the gate, and went downstairs … which (exhale) I found empty and alone as a secret, as it usually is on Saturday mornings. All old stone walls and tables perfect and patiently waiting for customers who either don’t know they exist, or give the latched gate too much respect, or are just content with the quite content-able upstairs. I drop anchor in my favorite booth, the third one to the right along the wall. Put in my earbuds and summon Keith Hines on KCSM, just coming on for his 6 a.m. shift from the Bay Area, to quiet the din of upstairs and the world at large. Plug in my laptop. Pull out my journal and the Dave Eggers book that I have fallen madly in love with since Thanksgiving plucking it from the full City Lights brown paper bag that sits like a treasure chest on my bookshelf. Take a picture, which is to say a prayer, in reverence, commemorating the blessed gift of a Saturday coffee shop morning in the good company of jazz, a perfect book, and the blank page. Slow draw that first glorious sip, which is to say Amen, feeling it warm all the way down ….

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