Caffeinated Religiosity

Insistent sunshine staggers every morning from the window to the floor, lapping up the morning hangover while skulking in the corner. Some mornings there is little there; only foggy tears from inconsistent clouds that congregate and brood above the door. And yet some days they beam with parabolic smiles, wide and perfect. Who can say, as blinds are pulled and curtains tugged, what mood will permeate the walls of this vulnerable community, this coffee culture-in-the-brew?

My needy neighbor soaks the airwaves with incessant moanings of a drunk-high relationship whore, feigning no pretense of control in her sobbing over Jimmy the red-headed frat boy. Behind me, tap-tap-tap, the insulated programmer gazes into binary black and whiteness as figures dance and formulas renovate themselves on a formidable screen. He vacuum seals the silent isolation with an MP3 player, listening perhaps to NPR or Isaac Asimov “on tape.” And buzzing in the interim, the space between the crisis-individuals, are all the hushed and hurried conversations over muffins, mumbled over crusted, poppy-seed lips; and none of them are simply well-absorbed. Too much muddle, rumination, stern and savory stares, figured with gesticulation toward contentious articles in news. So much important floating around my head, my one-dimensional book, and prying mind.

I lift my head slowly, glancing back and forth, hearing Russian expletives (I’m sure that’s what they are – who would kick the floor for commentary on the weather?) and French-beautiful phrases on the monotony of work. But coffee, spilling, poring, dripping, sipping in its full and potent body is not brewed in language. Who gurgles, gulps, and downs a savory Korean espresso or an evidently German scone? Therefore, the food is shared without the smallest reservation; backwards cultures share a chocolate chip cookie and never stop to speak about cross-contamination. And whether or not the conversation that evaporates from that early-morning dough is sufficient for full compromise, at least discussions sparks, and feelings breathe like fire.

Turning once again toward the academic persuasions of a book, I take in mind the diversity that spells itself within my atmosphere. Not an arms’ length from me, the whirlwind of worlds wrestles with the juggernaut of faith – or even just a simple banter over beer. How amazing! That I can tackle God and others tackle alcohol, and all is well with the world!

Now if you were to examine, with any scrutiny at all, the panoply of choices carefully stored in the muffin tin, or cookie jar, or pastry case, you would be hard pressed to choose a sweet addition to the afternoon. Observing the line that winds its serpentine way to the counter, I must agree that everyone faces a similar conundrum. The pastry makes the afternoon, together with caffeine in some unique concoction, and therefore must be chosen with the utmost care. But then, I think, the choice is not the freest freedom we have known, simple as that choice may seem. For if the choice were free, tuxedo-dressed, the world of delectable confections would be ours for the taking. As it is, some bigwig narrows down the field for us, offers us a few appetizing goods, and leaves remaining “freedom” up to us.

And what of the company of beverage with sweetness? We assume that coffee shops, being what they are, should be a locus for a community of food – but a certain type of food. And with that food, the drink of choice is ground and pulsed and pressed and drained with “shot” or “mocha” somewhere in the title. The food must be sweet, the drink must be hot and bitter. Beyond that, let the eminent freedom of choice redound to your utmost pleasure.

So it is, I think, with the conversation that envelops me. Forget the banal philosophy Aquinas complicates (too many words, words, words, and not enough is said), the diversity of language floating in this nexus is far more peculiar, instructing, and charged with awkwardness. How to brace the contentions? How to fit oneself in a myriad of shoes and ethnic homes? How to spend a minute in this conversation, and that, and then all of them together?

It is then I realize how different the Russian’s banter would become if accompanied (or ignited?) by a crisp, clear bottle of pure Russian vodka. And his companion, floundering in defensive platitudes, would hold his virulent own against the Slavic charge if he could clutch a warming Irish whisky in his tight-red fist. Who can say whether or not the two would meet, and greet, and happily concede a litany of points? But if at least their home were with their food and drink, a happy mingling of culture would be genuine, full frontal, bald, and blistering. If hearts were damaged, they would be Russian and Irish hearts; if lifted, they would be lifted in communion of two radically different voices. But they would be genuine, real, true, and human.

What has happened to the voice, coated with gummy knobs of characterless pudding, filtered through burnt streaks of coffee (always black)? Where does difference lie in a taste that is marketed as “average,” “common,” poised for “everyman”? So it is with conversation, rooted in the sustenance that brought it first together – a false and jarring joining of creed and culture in disappointing trial of compromise. Where the Russian is as awkward as the Irish, sipping terrible grounds and wondering if language is all that he can muster to demonstrate his own uniqueness.

But there is something to be said for the terrible culture of food this coffee house engenders. At least, I say, awkwardness is all-pervasive. At least, I say, the humble soul, defensive as it comes, bears the equal weight of every other soul. Coffee and doughnuts: these belong to no one. And therefore, the awkward cupping of their sweet and bitter counterbalance is the choice of all.

Now what has this at all to do with philosophy or culture, or the bettering of humankind? Nothing, perhaps. Yes, perhaps there is nothing at all within it that is necessarily a prompt for the betterment of our fragmented world. And yet (as I tease the final sip of coffee from its porcelain palace, cracked and worn with washings), awkwardness is a phenomenal location for our beginnings. For if the coffee is not brewed Russian, nor Irish, nor American, but something in between our definitions, we are grappling for something to say about it. How is your coffee? Who can answer, if we don’t know how coffee should be?

Three pages down, and Aquinas is becoming a wonderful catalyst for the perpetual yawn. I lean over and see the subject of the Asian girl’s feverish project: the ubiquitous undergraduate English paper. Her hand is nearly febrile, shaking and flying from one sentence to another in merciless correction. Butchering this sentence, chopping that. As she lifts her head to gulp a mouthful of brew, my heads snaps back to Thomas – it is, after all, immoral to be intruding on the business of another. Which treatise was that again? Sighing deeply, I crane my neck back down and seek out the fourth and final page. Perhaps less painful than the rack and more instructive, I’ll finish with some absorption to boast. But then, I usually just end up reading words and lusting after the last chocolate chip cookie on the counter.

As I try to focus on the blurry words of the Summae, I hear the voices of kinship rise and fall beside me. The Asian girl’s friends have arrived in droves. Suddenly, my world is a flurry of “Stephanie this” and “Stephanie that;” without looking up I try to imagine what the consort is like. Asians. That’s all I can picture.

I tilt my head to the side to get a glimpse of the bubbling scene, and find my assumption to be horribly âÂ?¦ well, wrong. African-Americans, Caucasians, Asians, and Latinos crowd around her table, shadowing the once attention-centric paper that so happily entertained all focus. Why is it I assumed her friends to be Asian? And why did my gut take a turn when the diversity of friends surrounding my neighbor was unveiled? Why – and here, I turn again to the treatise marked with coffee stains beneath me – would I even refer to this girl as Asian? A half-eaten chocolate chip cookie lies on her table, the crumbs from previous nibbles scattered across her work. Meanwhile, I wipe my keyboard clear of stray bits of dough and chocolate chips that fell from eager bites and impatient gobbles. She, an “Asian,” me, a “Caucasian.” Both lovers of chocolate chip cookies, and she, tackling English more fervently than I in my poor comprehension of Aquinas. Now tell me, who is more American? Who is more against the grain? And why is it my neighbor is Asian and not a cookie-loving master of the English language?

PART II: Building a Bond with Coffee: A Drugged Community

I can count the hordes with every precision these days, knowing who and what and when will course through the shimmering doors to fend for awakeness in espresso. Some drug, some virile potency is buried in the beans that are twisted, scraped, and scalded for a morning rub: aye, the rub! And if nothing else, I know the faces that prop themselves like invalids on the crutch of java; to sit and mull over sordid news is secondary, tertiary even. All is well when the surge of caffeine bubbles in the veins, and happy relationship is possible with new beings, alive!

I adore community, and find my place at home among the hustling crowds of this coffee cave, but I have to give it all a radical pause. I switched to tea this morning, you see, and sip at my peppermint warmth with lost libido for coffee, coffee, coffee. Let’s look around this dry house, and see where intoxication flows and laughter follows suit, a little child dangling in tow.

The grim-faced octogenarian, bristling beard and gray-snow hair that dulls the broodiness of shadowy eyes, contemplates the choices on the wall above me. His lips are curled downward, as though by force, and wrinkles in his brow reveal a sometimes-morbid meditation in the early morning hours. He whispers quick the order, slipping ones and fives by seductive cookies. And then, he rests beside the pastry glass for the sunshine to rise in a ritualistic double-latte coated with whipped cream. All the while the unknowing metallic beasts behind him churn and cough and choke with labor; and there, in latent happiness, he bores a hole in the far brick wall with a penetrating stare. To be livid at inanimation, to crack the solidarity of those unpresuming bricks, was to wake to divorce and unimaginable affairs, broken childhoods, inconceivable abuse, and every incendiary courtship with the finality of death.

“Non-fat, double latte with whipped cream?!?”

Ahhh, the world in peace was chaos-made-right-again, and slowly the gripping stare released for warmer consultation of the days events in print. But never a relationship.

I have often thought a superficial conversation with the brooding man of age would be far more productive than a light-headed perusal of inaccessible tomes of religion. Here I am (how strange!) unveiling the faith of people in their engine, their calculated fire, while praying for the strength to pierce the denser topics of religion in text. Practitioner-scholastic I am hardly, with too much time absorbing and not enough producing – or even witnessing the plod and acted appetites of others. That is why I come here, I suppose; that I, perhaps, can see the words I read unfold before me. And perhaps – if the day is good to me – those words will be interrupted, uprooted, cast down by unsuspecting souls eager for a conversation. And how willing am I to participate!

Now I think that coffee is cordial, a tune which humankind can sing with commonality. But today I’m looking for a change, a shift, a tantalizing trick to change the way my day unfolds. Let it be coffee (because I need the drug – tea is for days with appetite in surplus), but coffee with a twinge, a tweak, a turn, a trial. As I approach the same gray counter with its lavish confectionary displays, I long for something new to prompt an insurrection; to hell with calm dislodgings from the norm! I survey pumpernickel, gold, jaundice, pale blue, and gleaming white concoctions on the banister that runs beside the register. But this is day-after-dayness, the unbold, untrying, unconquerable feat of normalcy that applauds my hair in comb-overs instead of spikes or curls. How can I greet the banal community of baked goods with the same cologne, the same defining presence? No, no, I need a new rise from those sugary beasts, a glancing turn and admiring gaze from baristas running to and fro. And how to do it? Meet boldness with boldness, creativity with spark, and advance the day with newness, crowned in glorified revolution!!

“Double-shot espresso, please.”

Oh well. One day at a time. The Bastille wasn’t stormed overnight. Damn. It was, wasn’t it? Too late. An order is an order, a desire is desire in the latent corridors of self – and that cannot be denied in a passing instant! Not when the adorable coffee-slave at the register is serving me, anyway.

But satisfied all things take steps, and mine is one in a happy direction of change and moderate rebellion, I unload my books and bag, and settle by the consternated bricks. They still seem to shudder, guilty for some wrong not done, some crime perpetrated against the wizened contingent of the world. Perhaps those bricks are Catholic; and in their pathos, I tap my pencil on their surface for empathy and solidarity. At least they eschew sexuality, and never have to worry about the complexities of pregnancy and “disorientation.” Although, as I continue my rhythmic comfort, I find they are a little less than evenâÂ?¦and in no imaginable way symmetrical.

The curious intention of the boy two chairs away seems wholly affected. I say this as he glances up to “contemplate” the words he’s reading; his gaze in my direction gives my heart a jump, and I pretend in kind to build on empty theses and assertions captured from the wind. I forgot long since what I was writing, thinking, doing, breathing, and would rather play this game for the hours it would take to elicit a “hello.” I wonder to myself if caffination stalls relationship potential, loving couples waiting to collide. Or maybe I need more – do they make quadruple-shot espressos? Or would I barrel through the bricks at that energetic moment, burrowing my way to China with the power of launching spaceships? That might prove detrimental to my cause; and I wouldn’t sacrifice potential for an artificial boost of confidence. Well, it depends on how cute he was. Let’s be honest with ourselves.

The day cranks on, done with reading and the paper, and the eyes continually play past each other, never connecting to secure a firm conviction of attraction. How do people meet anyway? What makes them converge, affect a meeting, and jostle about in awkward conversation until balance is felt and something matures from the mire? All these things wade through my mind, the plodding pitch of thinking at odds with jittery fingers and recalcitrant strands of pointy hair. Until, at the end of the day and close of the doors, I’m ushered out in ultimate defeat. All the community I’ve made is within my fragmented mind, and I leave the battlefield divested of my knighthood. Not to mention the fact that my chivalrous efforts precluded any progress in study. Knight-templar I am not, and carry the cross with a distinct feeling of waning worth – an obligation that seems to suggest belonging. The religion of the flighty-eye and palpitating heart falls to agnosticism, and imagination lifted from the page is left behind in dust. Canons to the left of them, canons to the right of them, canons in front of them volleyed and thundered: into the valley of pride, rode the one, the one sundered.

PART III: The Insolated Thermos of Dialogue

“Can you plug me in?”
“Is this your coffee?”
“What time is it?” (Recalling half-way through the question that a prominent clock face dominates the center of the wall; turning, then, and ignoring the responseâÂ?¦)
“Did you lose internet too? Damn.”

I think, given the last ten minutes of earnest consideration, these are often the only, lonely words that pass between frequenters of Brewed Awakening. The scene is not anomalous: crooked over equations or crisp and butchered lines of text, self-written or assigned, are many, many interlopers. They are not strangers because they somehow grind against the notion of a coffee customer, the one who sips and sits and mulls over spices in the brain. They are abnormal in their lack of recognition, the isolated stream of consciousness that flows from eye to paper, pupil to screen, digit to hyper pen – and this is all. Crowded in their bubbles are many of the same, pandering to the insulation of academia and leaving behind the brew of interaction for some pure world of the self and its preoccupations.

The golden locks of a focused young woman tickle my nose hairs; that is how close we have come. I could indulge in lustful stroking, teasing strands between my itching fingertips to know: does she use conditioner? Or I could swap it, sway it, coddle it, and crank it to and fro, letting the gentle breeze discomfit a rhythmic pendulum swing; a toy, a tease, a practical diversion from the work that shame-facedly sits before me. But no. I don’t care if Neutrogena is involved, or if any grimy fingers feel that hair; all I want is to be left alone, to be untortured with reminders of someone else around me. Leave me be – to my papers, my books, my online instant messaging. Let me talk through ones and zeros, but not through locks and curls and breezy strands of fluff.

This is it exactly! A dozen, million students, strapped to tunes and pixels and phones that bore their way from ear to brain. And who needs to talk to Sam and Sally, sitting with a scone beside them? If talking is needed, reach out and touch someone – but do it (for God’s sake!) with the privacy of Yahoo! Instant Messenger.

Lifting my head up, after engorging my social psyche on digital frat boys, I tickle the table top with a few, purposeful strokes. I turn my head and weigh the pros and cons of another double-shot espresso. It’s three o’clock in the afternoon; the sky is bright and blue, the sun shines brilliantly through less-than-pristine glass, and the buzz of noise consumes the busy street. Outside the shops are intermittently absorbed in the business of the day: cutting hair, shuffling through travel deal brochures, waiting tables under darkened canopies. In each case, though, there is the happy bustle of humans playing humans in the greater web of being – the sultry restaurateur who prods the patron for dessert, the coiffeuse who trips over salty tears in the hastily-divulged story of how her kitty died, or even the quiet cashier at the local office supply store counting change (I see her spend an extra word or two when smiles treat her well behind the jailing counter). And here, I suppose, there is the greet-and-eat appointment with baristas, the churned and monotone request for coffee-nothing more. But when the java steams beside the opened book, all sense is lost of purpose in the grander gift of simple talk.

So, when the jolly Slav and unsuspecting Turk (age 45 and 56, respectively) settle to my right, I feel it is my call and duty to engage them. The problem rests with this: how to begin a conversation with a stranger, not knowing how their history has made a life for them. But if human, we surely share a commonality or two. Let’s scratch the surface, and see what provocation fires.

“Excuse me, I couldn’t help but overhear you mention Spokane. I’m from Spokane, myself.”
The quiet din is little less than totally discombobulating. Spokane. Location is a formidable start for similarities. Or so I thought.

One of them smiles, unsure how this common point would prove any engine for a real conversation. Or maybe it was the Slav who smiled, and he hasn’t learned the fundaments of English. Let’s hope.

“I mention it because it’s rare to hear of someone coming from Spokane in this area. Most everyone I know of around here is Californian.” I chuckle to confirm my implication of quasi-incestuousness. I say this to the Slav.

He routes his eyes around the circle of his intimates, pleading for some sort of reception to the purposeless observation I’ve set out baldly on the table. What to do with this Spokanite? And does anyone care? Why can’t he leave us to our coffee?

But just when my effort nearly proved fatal, destroying the somehow-assumed integrity of a soul that sticks to himself in caffeine, a shimmering effort surfaced. The “Turk” turned and confided, “I’m from Switzerland, and have only visited the United States a few times. I’m here visiting friends at the university.”

How about that! Well, no, he wasn’t a lifelong resident of Spokane, wayward for a week in the radically opposite environment of Berkeley, California, but he contributed something to my fledgling conversation! Perhaps it’s just as shocking to come to Berkeley from Switzerland as it is to come here from Spokane.

“Switzerland? Really? Wow! I actually grew up in Germany – mostly Bonn, but I was born in Berlin before the fall of the wall.” The desperate dregs of what I pressed just moments ago were eagerly mounted with sweetened whipped cream and flavored syrup; mount connection on connection until the fluid talk of relationship flows freely. And slowly, they swallowed the sweet concoction I created, licking their lips, and building up a taste for interjection on a quiet Friday afternoon.

“Germany! Nah ja? Sehr schoen! Kanst du Deutsch sprechen?”

“Nein,” I sadly admitted – no German left in me except the memories of childhood. Tottering old grandmothers, sweeter than apple pie, whisking me over to their kitchens for a delectable treat I shouldn’t have had. That’s the German in me still. But German, nonetheless.

And then, with arbitrary sternness, they downed their piping hot espressos, danced around a few incoherent phrases, padded their plaid sports jackets, and jettisoned to some imminently happening rendezvous. As quickly as I was companied, I was abandoned. And then, all I had to converse with was an empty cup of coffee and the overly concerted faces of mute students. So much for the happy encounter with the unknown, a newness in the learning of another. Eh, back to study. The laptops obscure the crusty pupil faces anyway.

PART IV: The Comma of Ambivalent Departure

The end comes to its curtain without elongated ovation. Several days and several hours, musty and dark or bright and bubbling, have passed in this cocoon. What have I learned in such happy-mixed-depression? To suck life in with every gout; to seethe at poisonous glares; to goad the happy minstrel brewing chatter. And when the stage is set for that climactic scene – silk-draped kings in fencing duels – the hush falls like thunder, and the silent legion of chairs perch without fear on the edge of disinfected tables.

I fold the unending lines of my laptop cord up from the floor. With each crease, I gaze at the company around me; some are never lost by closing hours, the dingy dank of hearing death knells in the pinnacle of life. Others are mopped over in their boisterous conversation with impregnable defeat, quieted and sulking from half-drunken coffees to the office/family/home. One by one, as the sun in its habit determines the end is near, patrons and practitioners of elocution wend their way through the shimmering glass doors to the street outside. The bustle has lapsed, and the decrepit age of day lends little company to those ejected from the community of brew.

Packing my bag full fit and to the brim, I carry my mug and napkin to the garbage can. Most days I can hardly reach it; customers scuttle about it reaching for sugar and cocoa and spoons, all in fast-forward. Today, all day, the sun has beaten down with vigor, and few have found refuge in this cave of troglodytes. But only a few. Today is Sunday, and I have to return home for formal praise and the community of Church. To spend the waning hours of a weekend in prayer and reflection, formal ritual and rote sociality – this is my appointment for the late afternoon.

The final call is sure; the prostituting cookies on the counter top are carefully laid to rest in boxes, ready for the morning. The glass display of delicate confections is nearly empty, lonely in its lack of purpose. So then, do people leave when food and beverage are hardly to be found. And then, with people gone and all our sustenance as wellâÂ?¦ why give ourselves a reason to remain? And at that revelatory moment, we pack our things – our books, our bags, our magazines, our trivia games and endless notes. We pack them all, and scurry out as though we chose to leave behind community for a different sort of company. The truth is far more terrible, I feel: we leave because we fear to be the last, to admit to all the world this is our stronghold, our fortress of relationship.

But memory is happy, slowly stepping out onto the concrete paths to home. I remember the Russian, the Irish, the steaming octogenarian and all his exploits leading to a fruitful java resurrection. I recall the students consumed with the property of study – isolated, yet still human. And in between the conversations of short quip, I imagine the strings of laughing children, eager for the sweet highlight of their day. They grabbed at cookies with more than just appetite; they were the solid and tangible proof that the tradition of coffee with Mom and Dad (and every relative between them) was held firm. It was representative of all that was well with the world. Hope for the future was possible because of all that a peanut butter, crumbly cookie stood for.

And so I leave and left and continue to go; the doors that close will reopen tomorrow, and I will be there to greet the early morning coffee makers. But Monday does not always hold a chocolate chip cookie in its habit, nor does it insist caffeine is digested promptly at three o’clock in the afternoon. Monday merely prods and pokes the heart and every inner organ of love, “What about the coffee over conversation? What about community? What about that paper-writing necessity of bonding over java?” And in that way, I will never leave the Brewed Awakenings that humankind engenders. Coffee is not the drug, but people are; and how wonderful the variety I have to choose from.

The car to my right hums to a gentle stop, and I carefully cross a quiet, sun-soaked street. As the sky paints orange in deference to evening shadows, I turn and softly smile at my home away from home. The dimples of my cheeks never seem to fade, even as the solitude of Church lies ineluctable before me.