Philosophy

Kindness by the Cup

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Ever since I was old enough to actually appreciate hot “adult” beverages, I preferred tea to coffee. In fact, there’s only one coffee drink I really like. It’s a cappuccino with cinnamon and honey that I was introduced to at my favorite West Side writing cafe as a cafe con miel, but I’ve since understood is easier to explain to baristas just as “cappuccino with honey and cinnamon at the bottom.”

I’m drinking that coffee drink right now at Taborspace- the cozy social hall of a church on Mount Tabor where the base of the bell tower was rented out to a series of cafe and fast-eats ventures. Most recently, and popularly, it became the third satellite location of the cafe I worked at nearly a decade ago. I talked briefly with the new faces about the old faces (and recipes, and wall notes, and procedures most likely) still around the main kitchen that used to be my world. Then I took my scone and Only Coffee Drink I Actually Like into the sunny, raftered, cozy hall with Christian-themed stained glass windows that only adds to the vibes.

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The Temple

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My idea of a “fancy night out” wasn’t entirely determined by period movies. A good chunk was my parents.

Growing up, my parents would occasionally fancy themselves up for special occasions and go out. My older sister was left in charge, $60 was left in the foyer for Dinos (or Michelli’s if we want pizza that night instead of subs) and my parents would head out. My father actually owned a tuxedo and one of my clearest memories of those times was my dad in a matching cummerbund and bowtie, with a chained ribbon around his neck and a smaller version on my mom’s.

As I got older and I ingested more media, visions of what one actually did in a tux and pearls clarified beyond “go off and leave me with my sisters.” Images of Thomas and Martha Wayne getting dolled up for the movies seemed old fashioned because that’s common and casual these days. Going to a concert also didn’t feel appropriate because I’d been to or seen rock and folk concerts. If there was a tuxedo in that crowd, it had to have been either a prank or a prop.

The opera or symphony, however… THAT felt like the kind of thing you dressed up for. The period pieces were definitely old-timey, but the buildings still exist and walking into one makes you feel like you ought to dress the part.

A photo of a music hall, taken looking down at the stage from the very back, highest row.
The Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall
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Between the Mountain and the Sea

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“A man would know the end he goes to, but he cannot know it if he does not turn, and return to his beginning, and hold that beginning in his being. If he would not be a stick whirled and whelmed in the stream, he must be the stream itself, all of it, from its spring to its sinking in the sea.”

Ursula K. Le Guin, A Wizard of Earthsea

“And Slid said: “I am the Lord of gliding waters and of foaming waters and of still. I am the Lord of all the waters in the world and all that long streams garner in the hills; but the soul of Slid is in the Sea. Thither goes all that glides upon Earth, and the end of all the rivers is the Sea.”

Excerpt From The Gods of Pegana,
Lord Dunsany

It’s a windy and cold morning on the shore. I’m out walking the beach down by the water, where the tide turns the sand from soft tan to slate gray and my boots leave footprints. It’s easier-going for older people who are out with their dogs. The dogs, for their part, don’t seem to mind the going or the feel of the cold sand; they’re high as kites on all the smells and feeling carried on salt air and the ability to run.

In a few hours, I’ll be on a plane back to Oregon. Back to my wife and cat, our basement apartment up a mountain, and eventually a kitchen that’s felt more like a psych ward the last few months than the serene kind of chaos I want to believe I work in.

Those LeGuin and Dunsany quotes slide through my mind along with “A Pirate Looks at 40.” It feels silly and dramatic and florid, but I don’t really care. Finding a bench on the pier where my grand-uncle once tried to teach me to fish, I could almost cry.

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A New Project on the Craft of Living

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After a rainy day and almost too much walking around in it, it seems the last wayward drops are making their way off the trees and onto the patio.

The week at the winery ended, for me at least, in one of those “what the fuck happened,” twelve-hour shifts that you can’t quite put your finger on where the day went or where it clearly all went wrong, but the only thing for it is embracing the suck, powering through, and getting to a point where you can leave the kitchen for a couple days without fear anything will irreparably explode.

I dragged my ass home, pausing to hit up one of my favorite beer stores along the way. The fact that I then dropped all three can of dark beer on the pavement- one rolling under the car, leading me to kneel down in the dark in a black hoodie, waiting for some impatient shmuck to flatten me before I realized it had rolled all the way under to the curb- confirmed that the day was Seriously and Entirely Fucked, and I needed to get myself home and out of work attire before something else happened.

Emily, absolute princess that she is, greeted me when I came home and told me to just get comfy. I stripped off my jeans and long sleeve undershirt, having already deposited my aprons and jacket for the laundry I’d do later. After a little downtime, some brainrot internet cartoons, and a little of my latest whiskey acquisition, I was feeling something like human again.

I’m in the middle of outlining a second manuscript (yes, while the mentorship book is still very overdue on my own schedule. It’ll get there, this is important too, trust me.) This one is the first book I’ve really tried to write with another person- and what’s more, it’s my father.

Dad was already a doctor here. I was still trying to figure out what the hell I was. Both of us had mud in our boots and wet socks.
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Shadows of Loss

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Portland is full of tannin shadows, and so are we.

It’s one of those things that you see, appreciate, but don’t know the actual word for until the memory tickles you enough to do a conversational, unspecific Google search. “What is it called when fallen leaves leave imprints on the sidewalk before they are cleared away?” The unsought-for “AI Summary” regurgitated the fact that there was no specific term, or that the term depended on whether they fell on set concrete and left an imprint or if it was set and left a stain from rotting.

As it was, the summary’s “scientific cause” description was adroit and perfect, because I am a sentimental nerd. Tannins are the compounds in leaves that, when they are wet, can leech out into the porous concrete and leave a “shadow” before the leaf itself is swept or blown away. Wine and tea snobs will also appreciate that tannins are the compounds that make their beverage of choice “dry” and crinkle the sides of the tongue, and cause the stains in a teacup. Equally poetic is the fact that consuming tannins too regularly or in high enough concentrations can cause anemia as they prevent the uptake of nutrients and minerals like iron.

For our autumnal purposes, however, “tannin shadow” is perfect because it’s the impact of a loss, left in bitterness. Fall in Portland is rainy and blustery, calling everyone to get cozy and reflect on the year, and the tannin shadows aren’t just on the sidewalk. Sitting in my sweaters and scarves, looking into my dark beers and whiskeys, and staring at patterns in pipe smoke on the back porch, I can’t help but acknowledge the legacies of losses.

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