europe through coffee

headed to seattle for memorial day weekend to spend three days with some very dear friends. and since it's all cloudy here today, and supposed to be cloudy and rainy in seattle (naturally), and i'm drinking a warm cup of coffee before visiting my fellow travelers, i'm thinking a lot about my semester spent traveling through europe.

coffee has always been more than a wake-up thing for me - although it is certainly that. i started drinking it in high school, and every cup from that first to the one i have at my desk as i write this has reminded me of my father. many smells remind me of him, but none more than the smell of a strong cup of coffee. so coffee is a ritual for me, a time however brief of remembering and honoring and becoming more like the person i hope to be. it's not an escape, but it is an indulgence. and it is a way of connecting - with my dad, myself, with God.

we had lots of cloudy days in europe, and many of them were spent in the pursuit of a good cup of coffee - although that desire was rarely fulfilled by anything more than an americano in a plastic water cup or nescafe pellets sprinkled into tepid water.

in london - our first stop - sarah and i would stop into caffe amici during our 10-minute class breaks. our lattes were so good that they normally cost around 6,000 pounds. lucky for us, the guy behind the bar gave us a break. it was good coffee - and some of my most fun memories from early on are of fifteen american college students crowded around two small tables across the street from our classroom, trying to prolong our time out of the room for as long as possible. the second half of class always dragged on, but we with our coffee were like heroin addicts who had just gotten their fix. we also spent our fair share of time at cafe nero, which was almost exactly like starbucks except that everything was blue on the inside.

paris, our next stay, was a surprisingly inhospitable place for those of us who wanted a cup of coffee. espresso you could find everywhere - every street corner had some dingy cafe advertising on red posters their steaming demitasses of lavazza. and you always got a chocolate with your espresso, even at 9 in the morning, which i really appreciated. but for someone whose daily regular is a medium drip from peet's, espresso doesn't suffice. i can't curl my hands around the radiant paper cup, can't sip from it delicately at first and hungrily when it cools down a bit. it's three or four gulps at most, and it's gone. or it's lingered over for three hours at a cafe table and a slice of orange, but we rarely had the time to sit and read the morning paper. many of us resorted to daily trips to the deli/florist/purveyor of hot beverages conveniently located below our hotel and next to our classroom; indeed, it was here that i first encountered that bitter, angry, sharp thing known as the americano. the man behind the counter swore up and down that it would taste just like regular coffee. i beg to differ. it was in paris, in fact, that i broke down and went to my first starbucks (the first of many lapses in promises i had made to myself at the beginning of the trip, in hopes of experiencing local culture and cuisine. after almost nonexistent hotel breakfasts and mexican food in germany and russian hot dogs, i couldn't run fast enough to the nearest mcdonald's or sbarro's - which, interestingly enough, seem to thrive abroad while totally going under in the U.S. go figure.).

russia - oh, russia. the hotel okhtinskaya (don't be fooled by the website. it was baaad) was our home in st. petersburg, and served instant coffee in the morning. along with breakfast hot dogs, which looked like those spaghetti-o things you eat when you're little. they taste nothing alike.
our hotel was situated across the neva river from st. petersburg, so each time we went into the city proper we had to take a bus several death-defying miles in such a stop-and-go manner that people were constantly losing control of their bodies and sliding all around the vehicle. i don't remember a starbucks in st. petersburg, but there was a mcdonald's that served what seemed at the time like the best coffee in the world - in a styrofoam cup, piping hot, no little coffee crystals floating around - it was brewed. never mind that it still smelled of pickles and french fry grease. it was just what we needed.

poland, germany, and austria were comparable in their offerings - nothing spectacular, but nothing spectacularly awful, either. in munich, in fact, we stayed down the street from a quaint little coffee shop and bakery which, although extremely fly-infested, served delicious pastries and very good coffee. if this place was in a cartoon, the steam off the coffee would have crept out the front door, wound across the street, come into my hotel room and beckoned me with one long finger, leading me all the way as i floated in. krakow had another gem, an english-language used bookstore that we encountered walking down a street away from the main square on a cold and blustery day. the smell of used books exponentially increases the experience of drinking a cup of coffee, or any hot beverage, and the memory of that afternoon is one i'll keep for a long time, one that i can conjure up any time i close my eyes and inhale deeply.

the best coffee - the most pure, most protected, best-loved - was in italy. venice, probably, at the cafe del doges right before the bridge to the store i loved. it was always packed; the kind of a place where finding a table was as likely as winning the lottery. people were boisterous and full of life - it wasn't any good for studying or writing assignments, but it was as lively as any coffee shop i've ever seen. i mostly sipped espresso there, and learned to love it there. the little chocolate squares wrapped in gold foil, the genius of whoever decided to pair the bitter coffee with the sweet candy, the hours of people-watching and seeing how coffee really is a ritual to all those who partake. it looks different for everyone, but between the sugaring and the milk or cream or soy, the small-medium-large, the 'for here or to take away,' the blowing on it or burning your tongue, the talking in fifteen languages but understanding exactly what someone means . . . it was reverent and communal and confusing and funny. how life can be.

as time went on, we wound our way through turkey and greece, both of which landed on the espresso area of the coffee spectrum. those of us who needed our daily fix were always able, somehow, to get it - which is oddly comforting to me; knowing that even though you share so little in terms of culture or language with someone, you can almost always share a cup of coffee with them. the forms may vary, but the desire is the same. the experience is paramount - and that's one of the best lessons i learned while traveling in europe. coffee as a metaphor for life, something that ought to be savored deeply and never rushed, something that helps us prepare for the day ahead or gives us a break when we need one most. we relax, we talk, we gain energy through caffeine, yes, but also through community or through solitude. we have time of deep connection with others, and times of silent reflection, and morning papers and good books and terrible books that we're embarrassed to be seen with and run-ins with acquaintances. a day in a coffee shop captures the gamut of life - whether you're at a starbucks in california, a corner cafe in london, a bookstore in poland, or a mcdonald's in russia. i find comfort in that same-ness.

and i think about God, and how he is our advocate and comforter, and the giver of all good things, and i think about the people who first figured out that coffee could be useful when they saw their goats acting strangely after eating coffee beans, and i think about all the people who have come before me and all the people who will come after me, and that coffee will remain. that's pretty existentially dramatic, but mostly i mean that a cup of coffee makes me think and i'm glad for that. i'm glad that God didn't decide to make all meals in pill form, glad that we can experience and savor and relish the good things in life. and these things help us to learn.

friday afternoon

it is the most beautiful day in santa barbara. the jacaranda trees are all in full bloom, which leaves the streets looking like they're perpetually recovering from a parade with lots of purple confetti. it is warm and clear outside, the kind of afternoon that was meant for wandering and sailing and accidental sunburns. and i'm glad on days like this for the bright sunshine, and i marvel at the fact that a star millions of miles away can light my small office and warm the concrete outside.

in another world . . . this is a great post to read about one person's response to the ca supreme court's decision to strike down the ban against gay marriage. i cannot imagine what it would feel like being told that i couldn't marry the person i wanted to. or even worse things, from the church, about how loving that person made me an aberration in God's eyes. yikes. i mean, i do my fair share of getting things wrong, but i think the part of me that loves other people is really the best part of me.

i have to call hermes today and put in my order for a celebratory bag five years down the road, just so that i know it will be ready whenever i do decide to get married. i'll let you know how it goes.

moving on . . .

transitions have never led to my finest moments.
for whatever reason, which years of counseling and deep introspection have helped reveal but not fully drawn the curtain on, i don't like change. some people are energized by it, crave it, need it. me, i hide from it.

i missed my eighth grade graduation ceremony to take a trip to europe with my family. part of me still regrets the goodbyes i never got to say - how melodramatic is that - to the friends i had who were headed to rolling meadows high school, while i and a small cohort of classmates moved on to william fremd. some people hated junior high - the braces, the sweaty dances in converted cafeterias, the steady formation of cliques. i loved junior high. i had good friends, great teachers. i was in love with a boy in my section, but only always from afar.
the moment that everyone in my class was receiving their diplomas, i was riding the chunnel from london to paris with my dad and sister. i teared up a bit, thinking of them and this great moment of sanctified tradition, honoring those eighth-graders who had gone before us and ushering us into a new era of life. i kid you not, this is what i was thinking about on the damn chunnel.

four years later, high school has come and gone. i am a bit more comfortable in my own skin, have got great life experiences under my belt, lots of firsts, and still nowhere near ready to be done. i had this group of friends who were just magical - still are - to me. we spent countless hours together in high school, especially towards the end, in our parent's basements and downtown chicago and around bonfires, and leaving them behind for the wide world of college was more than i could bear. on top of this, my family was moving - as my counselor so aptly put it, i was a little ship out at sea, and my dock was my home. now, not only was this little ship moving to california, so was her dock (i think otis redding is in there somewhere). for someone so change-resistant, it was about as hard as it gets. i knew God was in all of this somewhere, somehow, but didn't sense him very closely at all. now i know that i didn't really try.
we had a going-away party in my old illinois house - all the furniture moved out, the smell of new paint and carpet-cleaning fluid wafting throughout. we sat on the roof, one of our favorite summer activities - my windows afforded us easy access - and didn't leave it for hours. i didn't want to, because leaving the roof was as much a symbolic act as it was a physical one. we reminisced, breathed in the late illinois summer air heavy with moisture and late-blooming lilac, and watched my siblings and their friends on the ground below. my friend emily mentioned that it was so interesting to see one group of friends (the younger ones) that had just begun to form, and to have another just about to leave each other after several years.
earlier in the summer, on highschool graduation day, we had all somehow gotten the memo about wearing black-and-white floral dresses. i remember the moment we realized that and started to laugh as a good one. we were all so different. but we were together.

went on to college in santa barbara, and loved it all. all four years. i was so anxious at the beginning, i could have powered the whole campus with my nervous energy. but God helped me to settle in and i made great friends, and new friends every year. europe semester, spring sing, living in a house with some of the best friends i could ask for, my relationship with zack, santa barbara - four years of unexpected gifts and hardships that have made me into who i am today.
i woke up late on the morning of graduation. shit. i only had time for a quick shower and then took off like a madwoman, air-drying my hair out the window of my car. which explains why i still hate to look at pictures from that day. i broke every posted speed limit to get there on time, only to stand around on the lawn for 45 minutes before taking an all-class picture.
it was during a hard period in my life - so much had changed or was just about to, and i didn't know where i was going. it was awful. it was the most uncertain transition of all for me. me, who delights in certainty and grits my teeth through change, who insists on knowing and having clarity . . .
i hurt some people in the process of learning that clarity is not sacrosanct. i pushed people away who only wanted to love me or help me. i drew into myself and became more and more self-centered and less attuned to the humanity of those around me.

and now, it's been a year since that touchstone of change. i never would have guessed that i would be where i am now. i would have been shocked. because i forget that God is with me ALL THE TIME. i think that i should have control over everything - when what i really want, what i really need, is resurrection from the dead. (thanks to m.m. and g.s. for that one).
because that is what really matters. life is full of change - it is a series of changes. God knows that, and that's why his presence in my anxiety can redeem everything. i can't stop these changes from happening - or if i could, i don't think that's what i really want.
thank goodness that i don't have to decide what is best for me - because i would still be in eighth grade.

bougainvillea

sometimes, when i wonder if god is real and if he is close and if he cares about me, i look at the bougainvillea outside my window (while thanking him that i no longer live in the midwest). breathe in, breathe out, and believe.

this month, as the b. creeps over the arbor that shades the back patio, bluejays have made a nest under the protective vine. the parents scuttle all over the yard and return to the nest with their beaks full of little treasures: newspaper pieces from the recycling bin, twigs that have fallen to the ground, fern leaves so big that they might topple these royal birds.

and all of a sudden, i am reminded that God has promised me that if he clothes these birds in such splendor - gives them such a stunningly beautiful place to live, under the vibrant flowers and in the peaceful shade - if he does this, i can trust him to do that and more for me. i don't mean to say that bougainvillea makes my belief easier all the time - if only that were the case. if only there were something i could see, or smell, or touch that would affirm God's closeness to me. and while there are some things that bring his closeness into crisper focus - my good friends, family, a good book, music, blossoming flowers, and the ocean most of all - i still falter, still doubt, still wonder and fear.

and still, i am thankful and humbled and so glad to be here.

no offense, but . . .

lots of people have been talking about the 'stuff white people like' blog lately. it is certainly interesting, funny, etc. ironic, too; or perhaps simply smart blogging, seeing as how the blog itself has turned into something of a white-person phenomenon.
however, as soon as you get sick of reading it (which i hope you do; it's more than a little asinine and self-involved) i would recommend heading over to this website.

incidentally, have you ever noticed how some people expect to excuse the rest of whatever they say that goes along with the phrase 'i'm just saying' or 'no offense?' (i've done this, too). 'no offense, but Hitler was pretty efficient, when you think about it,' as one website puts it. or, 'that outfit is really ugly. i'm just saying!.' (as girls well know, the latter statement can be conveyed very simply in a series of looks and facial expressions, and in about as much time as it would take someone to say it aloud).
people use these phrases to preface a statement that normally would be offensive - i mean, that's the only time anyone ever says them! are people so afraid of causing offense that they feel the need to totally remove it as an option before they speak up? or is it just an accepted social nicety, meant for use before a person says anything remotely controversial?
i for one think that it is an unequivocally dumb thing to say.

i mean, no offense. i'm just saying . . .

three (3) bedtime thoughts

1.) realizing that i am technologically challenged, if you tilt your head to the left and say that is not the cutest dog you have ever seen, there is something seriously wrong with you. get over the fact that he is wearing a dress. really, it is precious.

2.) i always like to ask in conversation with others where they would be, if they could be anywhere in the world right now, in this moment, with no constraints. if i could be anywhere in the world right now, it would be back here. the carlyle in manhattan, with mallory and dad, wandering into museums and having doormen who wink at you and hearing eartha kitt and watching shakespeare in central park as the sun sets and the fireflies come out and drinking coffee on yellow velvet couches with sunflowers and lilies and reading the new york times.

3.) if you need proof that your family is far less weird than you ever thought, look no further. i offer a photograph of my mother forcibly dressing my sister's cat in a bumblebee outfit. was it halloween? it was not. it was, in fact, december. and this is not unusual. if i knew how to switch cell phone pictures onto the computer, i could show you sights that would have PETA swarming my parent's house faster than jack bauer could torture an answer out of a terrorist. when my mom calls, the picture that pops up shows her about five feet from our front door, dragging the cat behind her on a leash. she once let winston (yes, that adorable dog above) free in a goat pen in half moon bay. just because she thought it would be funny to see winston chase all the goats. needless to say, he did nothing of the sort. this from the same woman who now wants to have the dog sleep in a small doggy bed, instead of the kennel he's been sleeping in for nine years, just in case a burglar comes in the night. so that he can jump out, bite them to shreds, and save us all. the only problem lies in the fact that to keep winston in the laundry room, where he sleeps, we have to stack suitcases preventing him from getting out. my mom is sure that he'll somehow manage to leap over the luggage when he senses that we are in mortal danger; much as lassie would know to pull timmy out of the well. "he'll just know!" she says.

it must be nice to be normal.


mmmm . . . . good night moon.

spring cleaning

spring cleaning.

i'm obsessed.

and there isn't nearly enough of it to do in my 200 square-foot studio; so it's been spilling over into everything lately.  my office, my car, and, regrettably, my closet.  in a fit of cleaning frenzy, i always underestimate what i actually want/need in my wardrobe.  favoring order and space over clutter, i get rid of jeans, dresses, comfy sweatpants, and shoes; all of which i end up missing desperately after the euphoria of a chaos-free closet fades.  i end up missing my totally impractical purple flats, my favorite high school sweatshirt, and regretting that i ever parted with that questionable cocktail dress.  i could have worn it with those flats.  damn. 

but i digress.

this year, spring cleaning has gone to a new level entirely: college papers, summer resumes, pictures reminiscent of the arrested development mystery photo (in that they're fuzzy, not that they're balls.  just to clarify.), e-mails, and songs. 

i'm spring-cleaning my iTunes.

with that, i present four songs that i have chosen to delete forever.  but not without a bit of a heavy heart.  the songs, and the stories behind them:

1.) "thanks for the memories" (aka thx fr th mmrs)

first of all, i am more than totally embarrassed to admit that this song was ever a part of my collection.  this isn't a cute, oh-can-you-believe-she-still-listens-to-hanson, kind of song.  it's a bad song, sung and performed badly by a deeply annoying chicago band.  however, it will forever be the soundtrack to one of my favorite moments - and, ironically, one of my favorite memories.

my very best friend in the whole world got married last september.  it was a beautiful ceremony - touching, elegant, and with a totally awesome MOH toast to boot :)  for some odd reason, the bride allowed her normally good taste to be taken over by the heat of the moment, or something, and chose this Fall Out Boy tune as the bridal party song.  we did our best to shake it to this totally tuneless, rhythm-less song, but i doubt we had any real success.  it is an impossible task.  so, we stuck to the time-tested tactic of shouting out the words in a big circle while pumping our fists in the air, getting especially proficient during the chorus and awkwardly silent for the rest of it.

2.) one sweet day, mariah carey & boyz II men

sorry, i never told you/all i wanted to saaaaaaaay . . .

i'm already mad at myself for getting rid of this one.  i think that daydream was one of the first CDs i ever purchased.  my friends gina, yvonne, and i used to turn it on as loudly as our parents would let us and dance through all 75 minutes of it in one of our basements, singing every word to every song and incorporating grand hand gestures worthy of a true diva like mariah.  

however, at the age of 22, i am a bit humiliated to admit that i still cry every time i hear this song.  i'm listening to it on youtube right now.  and crying.  tears.  

i have some pride.

3.) linger, the cranberries

when i was 8 or 9, my older cousin ryan told me that this song was about farts ("don't let it burn, don't let it fade/do you have to, do you have to let it linger?" etc. etc.).  this song, i can't listen to without laughing.  and crinkling my nose a little bit.  

4.) sexyback, j.t. 

the house that i lived in last year was fortunate enough to have a few lovers of the downtown dance scene - most especially, that holy of holies, tonic. (which was, more often than not, a post-script to our cosmos with gary at tee-off!) thursday nights, our pregaming ritual usually consisted of a few drinks mixed (or not mixed) in the kitchen, getting opinions on outfits, and listening to a deafening soundtrack of the latest hits.  except that, somehow, this particular song never really made it off the rotation.  it's a feel-good number, to be sure, but one can only take the refrain and mechanized vocals so many times before the song starts to lose all meaning.  and i don't want to get down on justin, so i thought i'd retire this one for a bit.

whew.  that's enough for one night.  

i'm quickly adding all the jay-z i can, though.  counting down the days until april 16th.