I once took a job as a Barista at a local coffee shop. I learned to pull a perfect shot, watching a stop watch as the espresso pooled into one of those tiny little handled pourers, careful to keep all the parts hot, clean. Eager to produce perfectly foamed milk, that when carefully poured into thick crema with the right angle and timing, beautiful artsy leafy lattes (which mostly did not impress a damn person) were created. It was fun. And there was a lot of milk. Gallons and Gallons of milk. And my shoes became black from the coffee grind. Opening a shop and getting your day's work in before noon is a feeling that I don't long to feel again any time soon. It was an interesting transitional time in my life, and paid my bills and enriched my person, but not in the way that I claim to 'know' about coffee grind values and acidity and cold press and hoppers and tampers and demitasses. The sick sick sick feeling of being at work far far far too early. The muffins. The sticky icing that filled breakfast breads. The wiping and rewiping and wiping some more. The washing the dishes by hand in a three basin sink...
What I took away from those six-or-so-some-odd-months was about the people. The getting to know the people, the starting their drinks when they walked through the door. The anxious bodies piling in for their morning cuppa before the dawn had broken, starting as a slow trickle then progressing to a stream of 'all the kinds it takes' forming a line to the door as the day grew brighter and brighter. I made friends from across the counter. I innocently let a woman pressure me into letting her write a (bogus) check for a questionable amount of cash over the amount of her carmel latte (for gas she said, I know the owner), I played dungeons and dragons, I asked a regular customer what the word for (somethingorother) was in spanish to which he replied "I'm Farsi," and one day a known 'eccentric' woman customer (that was on the manager's shit list for convincing barista's to ring up her toddy as a less expensive beverage- myself included) gifted me a crystal 'bride's necklace' (she said) that hangs in my west facing living room window as a sun catcher, spattering rainbows across the walls daily just before the sun sets. It was always about the people. And about a single conversation that I had with a co-worker; what I will likely always feel was my purpose for that stint in coffee service.
She was (respectfully) a smarty pants student close to graduating the English department at the University; a writer. She impressed me with her accounts of the book she was working on and I'm sure that if she were to read any bit of what I have published here on this internet journal- that I unashamedly share with anyone who will read- would have lots to contribute as far as criticisms, etc. But that is beside the point. Actually that's exactly the point. One mid-morning whilst catching our breath after the AM onslaught of caffeine fiends, she was telling me a little bit about what it is like to be a writer, when I offered up a wholehearted, "I think about writing a lot."
Then she said it. There was a short aside, like something about a professor of hers quoting a scholar- something really smart that smart people say, followed by: "Don't think (about writing.) Just write."
I still think about writing all the time.
I found this antique typewriter at the Salvation Army today, a message from the cosmos. All it takes to be a writer is to write. How lucky I was to be a Barista.
Thanks for reading.
