Kindness by the Cup

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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Between the Mountain and the Sea

“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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The Inhale

A chilly night, but not as chilly as it will eventually be. I’ve decided a thin-but-thermal cotton hoodie, t-shirt, and sudra will do as I get out to unwind on my Saturday. I’m at the Beer Bus, of course- I felt the need to gently socialize, and the bartender on weekends is a cool guy, but we don’t know each other quite well enough to chit-chat. I’ll bother him for a beer, do a little small talk, then I know he’ll go into his own world and chat with more regular customers while I do my thing. I get to just observe, drink some good beer, and write a bit.

A place that takes care to curate their beer offerings is worth hanging around…
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Grounding vs. Grievance

“[…]and I have filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship […]”

– Exodus 31:3

Despite all my writing about The Way of the Floured Hand, the happy moments in the bakeshop, and how fulfilling it is to work with my hands (I’m pretty sure I would self-mummify at a full-time desk job), the fact is this shit is WORK.

As much as I may like the work, and as good as I am at it, at a certain point in especially busy weeks I find myself saying “I wanted to be a pastry chef… and for my sins, they let me become one.” Whether it’s persnickety chefs, crowded kitchens, or cooks that regularly seem too dazed and bewildered to understand what “hustle” means and manage to be underfoot even while I’m standing still, this calling of mine is good at reminding me that I’m doing it for pay, and they’re gonna make me earn that pay.

Picture of an old tree with large, sprawling above-ground roots.
“Deep roots are not touched by the frost.” – J. R. R. Tolkein.
Photo by Daniel Watson on Pexels.com
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Greasing the “#Grindset”

The ups-and-downs of the hospitality industry are no joke. Bosses and owners use words like “feast or famine” to describe the activity between the “busy seasons” and “slow seasons.”

I came from a beach town, where “slow season” meant quiet time. It meant half the local, non-chain ice cream stands and places on the boardwalk simply shuttered from Labor Day to Easter. Kids who wanted/needed summer jobs near their parents summer homes knew they needed to have their applications and resumes in shortly after Valentines Day if they wanted an apron waiting for them by the time Mom and Dad aired out the “life’s a beach” and “Island state of mind” decor.

The winery’s busy season starts around Easter- our “dress rehearsal” for Mother’s Day Brunch- and lasts the entirety of Wedding Season (May- September) with possibly a small lull before the Holiday Party. After New Years Day, however, business goes off a cliff. Hours get cut, and employees cash out reserved PTO to fluff up their checks and pay bills. They find gig work, pursue side hustles, or even pick up per diem jobs at places with skeleton crews and sick time policies.

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