The Visa Diaries

Global warming notwithstanding, winter has finally arrived in the Northeast. Although I live across the street from my studio and my commute could be all of 2 minutes, every morning I make a short detour to BookTrader, our local independent coffee shop. Until I have my cup of dark roast coffee, with a generous pour of half-and-half, the day just feels jagged and provisional.

I remember when I was living in San Francisco during the height of the dot-com boom, and working near South Park, which was a mecca of venture financed start-ups, all hysterically racing to capture eyeballs, market share, and millions with their web-thingy’s. In the aftermath of the bust, a friend of mine who worked nearby commented, “out of this whole area, I bet the company that made the most money was Centro,” the little independent coffeeshop on the park. I had to agree.

Coffee is a small, momentary comfort and pleasure. It doesn’t break the bank or split the seems, yet somehow makes life bearable, whatever is seeming unbearable without it. It facilitates a whole attitude shift, almost a lifestyle shift – bringing whatever the task is into the image of the furnished lifestyle. Does that make sense? I mean, all of a sudden, gourmet coffee in hand, I feel like  a person in a movie, or a person in an image, who’s doing the thing I’m doing with grace and forbearance, as opposed to the dumb banal schmuck who just does it and suffers (whom they don’t make movies about).

My thinking goes, ‘ugh, I didn’t get enough sleep and about to get reamed by my teacher for not producing enough, but at least I can have a nice warm cup of coffee.’ Or, ‘I can’t do much about the jerks in power or the war in Iraq, but at least I have a hot, fragrant liquid warming my tummy.’ Its that small turn-around, that small thing to look forward to that makes it possible to face the rest. Maybe it is all very Zen, or maybe it is escapist. Maybe it is an example of a modern ritual, which commentators say we lack, or maybe it is buying into Starbucks’ marketing hype. Or, maybe after I have another cup of coffee, I will be able to deal with the uncertainly.