Tuesday, March 3, 2015
Why I Defected from the White Light
Dear New Age Movement,
We both know this has been a long time coming, but I will say it anyway: I am leaving you. We have had some really good times, and I thank you for all you have taught me. In so many ways, I grew up and found my place in the world with you by my side.
But lately your narcissism and magical thinking have left me feeling empty and exhausted. I feel there is no room for me as I mature and encounter the limitations of my own humanity. I am certain you will not be alone for long. There are countless sweet young things as eager to worship you as I once was.
Meanwhile, I believe I have found an intelligent spirituality to partner with, one that includes everyday people with the courage to face realities like illness, financial hardship, disabled children and sagging breasts - realities which affirmations and prosperity prayers somehow don't instantly fix. One wish I have for you is that you can find a place in your heart for such people and stop blaming them for their frailties and foibles. Many of them really are great people, even if they don't look as polished as you and your bleached front teeth.
I wish you well as we go our separate ways. Namaste, you charming bastard, you.
Sincerely,
DF
It's not like I actually planned to join the New Age movement. Not the way someone might plan, for instance, to register as a Democrat or relocate for a job in Des Moines.
What drew me inadvertently into what I call the Crystal Blue Persuasion in the late 1980s was an interest in recovery from mental illness beyond what traditional psychiatry offered at that time. I was fascinated by approaches like body-centered therapies and acupuncture and yogic breathing for managing moods, reducing symptoms and increasing a sense of well-being for the kind of people who used to get sent away to someplace unspeakably scary or sent home grotesquely tranquilized for, like, a really long time. People like a great aunt who suicided just before the FDA approved the use of lithium as a psychiatric medication. People like me, who received a PTSD diagnosis during my senior year in high school in 1988, when many Americans still equivocated that condition with post-Vietnam Syndrome.
Please understand that this was a good 10 years or so before downward dog became a household word or anyone had ever even heard of kale. Quality-of-life pharmaceuticals like Prozac, which could alleviate symptoms without completely tranquilizing patients, were just barely making their entrance on the treatment scene. I simply refused to believe that people with mental disorders like PTSD were doomed to a life of either emotional torment or Mother's Little Helper coma. There just weren't a heck of a lot of treatment options at that time. Either you were in a hospital, in decades-long analysis, in a Skinner box, or hopelessly unstable with emotional issues that none of the above could alleviate.
I started exploring alternative psychotherapies like Gestalt and Bioenergetics, first as a client and later as a therapist-in-training. Initially, these approaches grew out of the humanistic psychology model and took hold amid the counterculture of the 1960s. I thought they were cool and a little rebellious. There was so much creativity and inspiration going on, and sometimes downright heroics. People's lives were bravely turning around before my eyes as they confronted their demons with unfathomable pluck. The methods were a little out there, but still practical and in many cases effective where talk therapy interventions fell short.
I'm not entirely clear on how the practicality of techniques that relaxed and restored the nervous system morphed into an inclination toward metaphysics. Something to do with Ram Dass and acid, I'm told. Also, in the absence of today's unprecedented advances in neuroscience and brain scanning technologies, the benefits of these therapies seemed magical. Even miraculous. There was no doubt to me that there was a strong spiritual component to this kind of emotional healing. I had always had mystical proclivities anyway. In fact, I discovered my own spirituality in those types of somatic processes and continue those practices as my form of private worship to this day. What I did not find inside myself was the wacky superficial theology that began to spring up around these holistic healing communities like mushrooms after a rain. I did not drink the Kool-Aid.
Well, maybe a sip. There was a phase of my own trauma recovery that was so brutal that I began buying into the magical thinking. I began to believe that my thoughts could control outcomes (and incomes) and that imagining myself in a bubble of white light would exempt me from the human condition. And I would secretly praise myself when this worked and chastise myself when it didn't. I lived in what amounted to a spiritual meritocracy whose basic tenants echoed the wish fulfillment fantasies of a seven year old.
Until a dear friend got sick and much of our healing community either blamed her (for taking on bad karma) or blamed themselves (for giving her negative vibes). This woman was on her death bed. Her family was planning her funeral. And our so-called spiritual group was morbidly preoccupied with who was to blame energetically? I knew then it had to stop. This was not a mature spirituality.
Yet I also knew there were some grains of truth amid all the hype and how-to gurus. True, I could no longer emotionally afford to believe that we humans completely "create our own reality" like mythical sorcerers of destiny. If we were that powerful, no one would ever be poor or sick or homely or heartbroken, ever. I understood that deep acceptance of life as it is, without judgment, was key to happiness and mental health. But what I did draw from the movement was that how we choose to view reality - what we focus on, what narrative we attribute to events, how we organize ourselves around what happens to us - does impact our experience of life. And, because of a whole bunch of cool, complicated neurological shit like mirror neurons, the world responds in kind. (More on that later.) Try this: wherever you are currently located while reading this, look around for as many red things as you can possibly find. Red is freakin' everywhere, right? Now look for green. Wait, the whole entire world is totally green! And so on. But there is no way that you can make red not red, or green anything other than green, without a can of spray paint for which you will have to show some i.d. to purchase at Ace.
Fast forward a few years, and you'll find me a snarky veteran of the experiential workshop. If, like me, you have been to countless touchy feely psychotherapy trainings, you have no doubt encountered the "What kind of animal is most like your personality and why?" group icebreaker.
And no doubt you've borne witness to such cosmic pearls as "wild gazelle," "winter swan" or "sparkly vampire."
And if you happened to be in that same workshop with me in recent years, you might have heard me say "billy goat - friendly, curious, stubborn, playful, naughty, bold and sometimes ornery just for the fun of it."
Because, Sparkle Pony, no one shits magic dust.
Saturday, February 14, 2015
Compassion Bootcamp
No one wants to be that person. The person about whom you internally roll your eyes when they do that thing they do. I've made it a life goal not to be that person. Until I couldn't help it. And then I understood that that person doesn't want to be like that either, if they had a choice.
I became that person practically overnight after a texting teenager rear-ended me at a stoplight the day after my cat died, causing me to hit a tank of an SUV in front of me and shaking my cranium so violently that I got a concussion.
At first, I thought my symptoms were the result of raw grief and emotional shock. I was irritable, sensitive and exhausted. But then, as my whiplash treatment progressed and I realized that I was actually not experiencing post-trauma symptoms - I felt reasonably at ease being a driver, passenger or pedestrian amid multiple moving vehicles - I asked my doctor why I was thinking and behaving in ways completely opposite to my norm. I knew I was moving more slowly due to my injuries, but I noticed that my cognitive functioning was also sluggish.
For the first time in my life, I was suddenly indecisive and vague. I had difficulty planning ahead or staying organized. I had trouble focusing and became overwhelmed easily. I could not process more than a few external stimuli at a time, and I often forgot was I was saying in the middle of a sentence. I slept copious hours and had little initiative. These are not the predominant traits of someone who wrote on deadlines in news rooms for a first career. They are not characteristics that anyone who knew me would ever use to describe me. It was like Freaky Friday: I woke up one morning, and I was the complete opposite of who I was the day before.
I had to reduce my exposure to stimuli like never before, which turned me into the princess-and-the-pea person I used to joke about. The person who asks you to turn down your music or your laughter. The one who freaks out in crowds and would prefer to hole up at home with a book than interact with more than three people at a time. The one who requires a scent-free environment, rubber soles and inside voice. The one who asks you to repeat yourself because someone coughed in the background while you were talking. I'd once judged a woman in a training workshop as controlling when she asked me to stop eating an apple because the crunching was disrupting her concentration. I realize now that perhaps she had genuine attention issues.
Before the accident, I never had even an inkling of what it might be like to be so diffuse. My attention was a laser beam I could focus at will no matter what chaos surrounded me. Precision had always been a personal hallmark, a source of pride and income alike. And, of course, because I demanded exactitude from myself in most things, I expected it from the world around me. Which is fine if you isolate yourself in a bubble of like-minded individuals with who you interact exclusively online. So, needless to say, I was frustrated with real live people. Like, a lot. And I often indulged in the self-righteous delusion that everyone else is an imbecile. Except you, of course.
This narrow worldview is evidence of the construct that students of the Enneagram model of personality refer to as the False Self. Progressive Franciscan priest Richard Rohr describes the False Self as the small self or ego identity. He writes that "most of humanity is so enchanted with its False (concocted) Self that it has largely doubted and rejected—or never known—its True Self. And so it lives in anxiety and insecurity. We have put so much time into creating it that we cannot imagine this False Self not being true—or not being 'me.'"
This could not have been more evident than when I relocated from a city of 5.5 million to a town of 75,000. I've already exhausted in another post the topic of my Type A dissatisfaction in a Type Minus P community. I coped by glibly whipping up snarky slogans for the pervasive chillaxation of my new home, such as "where Mercury is always in retrograde" or "where every day is 4/20." Which earned me a few laughs but did nothing for my adjustment disorder. And ultimately, I really did want to be happy.
So I practiced radical acceptance. I made gratitude lists. I recited the Metta Prayer. I took the "Complaint-Free World" challenge. I volunteered in the community. I bought a house and designed a garden and set down roots. Nearly a decade passed in my new home, and still I found myself frequently irritated by the chronic slowness of my surroundings. I fully understood why meth labs were popping up like cactus in the desert wilderness on the outskirts of town. If I had to live my entire life in some remote outpost over there, I'd need under-the-sink crystal motivation to get my bored ass out the door, too.
And then it hit me. The Ford Taurus, that is. Little did I know that my prayers to be at peace, to bloom where I'd been planted, were being answered in the form of the two tons of speeding metal ramming into my brand new two tons of inert metal minding its own business at a red light, which rammed into two more tons of inert metal also minding its own business. A divine intervention of absurd clusterfuckery that may have ultimately changed my life, or at least my mind, for the better.
That seems to be how authentic personal change works. It's not like we can simply set an intention or invoke the power of grace and - poof! - an instant spiritual surgery occurs that frees us from our fixed ideas and stubborn defenses for life. Hell no. The way it works is more like planting a field or training for a marathon. We start small. We suck at first. We sweat. We trudge and backslide and twist our ankles and lose time. We have mini successes and then inexplicable setbacks. And our hard work and sincerity don't necessarily guarantee the results we would like. Sometimes life has something even better in store. We may not harvest a bumper crop or place in the race, but we are freed from our narrow ways and perceptions that have caused so much suffering. We have a panorama of choices where we previously hyperfocused on being happy if only we could get our way.
To be clear, I would not have ordered this on a menu. I could have done without the terrifying experience of a crash. Followed by a nail-biting poker game of whose insurance pays for what. Followed by three to four physical therapy appointments a week and reduced work hours. Followed by ongoing pain in my neck and back that still wakes me at night sometimes. Nonetheless, it turns out I received some unexpected gifts from my post-accident fugue.
For the first time in my life, I am having the experience of just-right vulnerability - that sweet spot between oversharing and manning up. By sticking my big toe into the scary water of letting people know my current limitations, I discovered that there really are a lot of very kind people out there. And most of them can be reasonably supportive when I can clearly ask for what I need. As a helping professional who typically gives, I probably would not have had this experience of receiving were it not for the fact that I was completely off my game for the better of six months.
As human behavior researcher and author Brené Brown, a self-described vulnerability hater, stated in her viral TEDTalk on The Power of Vulnerability, subjects of her studies who were found to have a strong sense of love and belonging "had, very simply, the courage to be imperfect. They had the compassion to be kind to themselves first and then to others, because, as it turns out, we can't practice compassion with other people if we can't treat ourselves kindly... They had connection, and - this was the hard part - as a result of authenticity, they were willing to let go of who they thought they should be in order to be who they were, which you have to absolutely do that for connection."
Of all my Traumatic Brain Injury symptoms, the most vulnerable was the unpredictability of the vulnerability. One week, I would feel like myself again. The next it seemed like people were yelling when they were actually talking, while everything other than human voices sounded like nails on a chalk board. My symptoms refused to resolve in a linear fashion. I would consistently have to admit to others that I was "having a bad brain day." Just when I thought I might be getting back to normal, I would inexplicably backslide into a mind-engulfing neuro-fog.
But it was precisely this repetitive experience of losing control after I'd just barely regained it which became the unexpected compassion curriculum that opened my heart to new levels of empathy as I experienced limitations I had never before had. When the woman behind me in line at a cash register tried rushing me as I neurologically struggled to coordinate myself enough to put my change back in my wallet, I instantly felt what it's like to experience another's impatience. And the delusion that it is ever okay to treat people like I am more important than they are broke open in my mind and heart like a sacred lotus - one with sharp thorns that stung me into realization.
The surreal and overwhelming convergence of the above-mentioned events left me with the breathtakingly saturated experience of just how completely loved, supported and held I am by countless dear ones. I had been living by the unquestioned dogma that I am lovable only when I am strong. It turns out that, while others may appreciate and enjoy our strengths, our frailties are the ports of entry into which they can actually interface with us on a human level.
I became that person practically overnight after a texting teenager rear-ended me at a stoplight the day after my cat died, causing me to hit a tank of an SUV in front of me and shaking my cranium so violently that I got a concussion.
At first, I thought my symptoms were the result of raw grief and emotional shock. I was irritable, sensitive and exhausted. But then, as my whiplash treatment progressed and I realized that I was actually not experiencing post-trauma symptoms - I felt reasonably at ease being a driver, passenger or pedestrian amid multiple moving vehicles - I asked my doctor why I was thinking and behaving in ways completely opposite to my norm. I knew I was moving more slowly due to my injuries, but I noticed that my cognitive functioning was also sluggish.
For the first time in my life, I was suddenly indecisive and vague. I had difficulty planning ahead or staying organized. I had trouble focusing and became overwhelmed easily. I could not process more than a few external stimuli at a time, and I often forgot was I was saying in the middle of a sentence. I slept copious hours and had little initiative. These are not the predominant traits of someone who wrote on deadlines in news rooms for a first career. They are not characteristics that anyone who knew me would ever use to describe me. It was like Freaky Friday: I woke up one morning, and I was the complete opposite of who I was the day before.
I had to reduce my exposure to stimuli like never before, which turned me into the princess-and-the-pea person I used to joke about. The person who asks you to turn down your music or your laughter. The one who freaks out in crowds and would prefer to hole up at home with a book than interact with more than three people at a time. The one who requires a scent-free environment, rubber soles and inside voice. The one who asks you to repeat yourself because someone coughed in the background while you were talking. I'd once judged a woman in a training workshop as controlling when she asked me to stop eating an apple because the crunching was disrupting her concentration. I realize now that perhaps she had genuine attention issues.
Before the accident, I never had even an inkling of what it might be like to be so diffuse. My attention was a laser beam I could focus at will no matter what chaos surrounded me. Precision had always been a personal hallmark, a source of pride and income alike. And, of course, because I demanded exactitude from myself in most things, I expected it from the world around me. Which is fine if you isolate yourself in a bubble of like-minded individuals with who you interact exclusively online. So, needless to say, I was frustrated with real live people. Like, a lot. And I often indulged in the self-righteous delusion that everyone else is an imbecile. Except you, of course.
This narrow worldview is evidence of the construct that students of the Enneagram model of personality refer to as the False Self. Progressive Franciscan priest Richard Rohr describes the False Self as the small self or ego identity. He writes that "most of humanity is so enchanted with its False (concocted) Self that it has largely doubted and rejected—or never known—its True Self. And so it lives in anxiety and insecurity. We have put so much time into creating it that we cannot imagine this False Self not being true—or not being 'me.'"
This could not have been more evident than when I relocated from a city of 5.5 million to a town of 75,000. I've already exhausted in another post the topic of my Type A dissatisfaction in a Type Minus P community. I coped by glibly whipping up snarky slogans for the pervasive chillaxation of my new home, such as "where Mercury is always in retrograde" or "where every day is 4/20." Which earned me a few laughs but did nothing for my adjustment disorder. And ultimately, I really did want to be happy.
So I practiced radical acceptance. I made gratitude lists. I recited the Metta Prayer. I took the "Complaint-Free World" challenge. I volunteered in the community. I bought a house and designed a garden and set down roots. Nearly a decade passed in my new home, and still I found myself frequently irritated by the chronic slowness of my surroundings. I fully understood why meth labs were popping up like cactus in the desert wilderness on the outskirts of town. If I had to live my entire life in some remote outpost over there, I'd need under-the-sink crystal motivation to get my bored ass out the door, too.
And then it hit me. The Ford Taurus, that is. Little did I know that my prayers to be at peace, to bloom where I'd been planted, were being answered in the form of the two tons of speeding metal ramming into my brand new two tons of inert metal minding its own business at a red light, which rammed into two more tons of inert metal also minding its own business. A divine intervention of absurd clusterfuckery that may have ultimately changed my life, or at least my mind, for the better.
That seems to be how authentic personal change works. It's not like we can simply set an intention or invoke the power of grace and - poof! - an instant spiritual surgery occurs that frees us from our fixed ideas and stubborn defenses for life. Hell no. The way it works is more like planting a field or training for a marathon. We start small. We suck at first. We sweat. We trudge and backslide and twist our ankles and lose time. We have mini successes and then inexplicable setbacks. And our hard work and sincerity don't necessarily guarantee the results we would like. Sometimes life has something even better in store. We may not harvest a bumper crop or place in the race, but we are freed from our narrow ways and perceptions that have caused so much suffering. We have a panorama of choices where we previously hyperfocused on being happy if only we could get our way.
To be clear, I would not have ordered this on a menu. I could have done without the terrifying experience of a crash. Followed by a nail-biting poker game of whose insurance pays for what. Followed by three to four physical therapy appointments a week and reduced work hours. Followed by ongoing pain in my neck and back that still wakes me at night sometimes. Nonetheless, it turns out I received some unexpected gifts from my post-accident fugue.
For the first time in my life, I am having the experience of just-right vulnerability - that sweet spot between oversharing and manning up. By sticking my big toe into the scary water of letting people know my current limitations, I discovered that there really are a lot of very kind people out there. And most of them can be reasonably supportive when I can clearly ask for what I need. As a helping professional who typically gives, I probably would not have had this experience of receiving were it not for the fact that I was completely off my game for the better of six months.
As human behavior researcher and author Brené Brown, a self-described vulnerability hater, stated in her viral TEDTalk on The Power of Vulnerability, subjects of her studies who were found to have a strong sense of love and belonging "had, very simply, the courage to be imperfect. They had the compassion to be kind to themselves first and then to others, because, as it turns out, we can't practice compassion with other people if we can't treat ourselves kindly... They had connection, and - this was the hard part - as a result of authenticity, they were willing to let go of who they thought they should be in order to be who they were, which you have to absolutely do that for connection."
Of all my Traumatic Brain Injury symptoms, the most vulnerable was the unpredictability of the vulnerability. One week, I would feel like myself again. The next it seemed like people were yelling when they were actually talking, while everything other than human voices sounded like nails on a chalk board. My symptoms refused to resolve in a linear fashion. I would consistently have to admit to others that I was "having a bad brain day." Just when I thought I might be getting back to normal, I would inexplicably backslide into a mind-engulfing neuro-fog.
But it was precisely this repetitive experience of losing control after I'd just barely regained it which became the unexpected compassion curriculum that opened my heart to new levels of empathy as I experienced limitations I had never before had. When the woman behind me in line at a cash register tried rushing me as I neurologically struggled to coordinate myself enough to put my change back in my wallet, I instantly felt what it's like to experience another's impatience. And the delusion that it is ever okay to treat people like I am more important than they are broke open in my mind and heart like a sacred lotus - one with sharp thorns that stung me into realization.
The surreal and overwhelming convergence of the above-mentioned events left me with the breathtakingly saturated experience of just how completely loved, supported and held I am by countless dear ones. I had been living by the unquestioned dogma that I am lovable only when I am strong. It turns out that, while others may appreciate and enjoy our strengths, our frailties are the ports of entry into which they can actually interface with us on a human level.
Saturday, January 31, 2015
Your Papers, Please
I once met a witty and insightful Latina immigrant who told me, "South Florida is the closest place you can live to America without needing a passport."
This is not an exaggeration. While it may be a geological fluke that the southern tip of Florida happens to be connected to the continental United States, for all intents and purposes, SoFla is Caribbean. My hometown is a mirror image of the Greater Antilles, with which we Miamians have more in common than with our fellow citizens in the peninsula or Panhandle. We have 70-degree winter days and swaying palm trees, native orchids and wild parrots. We eat Christmas dinner by the pool. We hardly ever wear shoes. We have freakin' mangos - mangos, for God's sake! - growing in the backyard. And pretty much no one speaks English as their first language. Entire neighborhoods don't speak it as their second.
This sense of being a stranger in your country of birth can happen not only in major ports of immigration like Miami, New York and San Francisco. It is just as true when moving from one state to another. The U.S. is comprised of such a massive swath of continent that each state is, in all practicality, its own country. The laws are different. The infrastructure varies considerably (try this some time for fun: drive top speed from Pagosa Springs, CO, to Chama, NM, and see if you and your tires don't notice an immediate change in road conditions the moment you see the "¡Bienvenidos a Nuevo Mexico!" sign). Your insurance policies don't automatically transfer, even if you stay with the same company, so you suddenly have a half dozen pre-existing conditions that won't be covered now that you've relocated. And if you are a licensed professional in one state, do not assume for one second that you can legitimately practice in another state without paying an obscene amount in fees and taking yet another irrelevant board exam about absolutely nothing you have ever learned in school or have ever done at work in 15 years in the field.
But the most disorienting aspect of interstate relocation is the difference in cultural norms. What is thought rude in Nebraska might actually be considered a compliment in Massachusetts. A taboo in Maryland could be completely socially acceptable in Nevada (where, let's face it, pretty much anything goes). When my step-sister came to visit me at college in Boston with her Annie Lennox circa 1990 platinum spiked hair, an old-timer in the North End (Beantown's answer to Little Italy) walked up to her and demanded, "Hey! What's with the hair? I liked it the other way!" "What other way?" she shot back. "You've never seen me before in my life." "I don't know," he teased, "but any way is better than that!" We all died laughing. But you simply cannot pull that shit in Omaha.
Of course, nobody tells you this explicitly. You just have to find out the hard way when you step into a big pile of it in front of the whole damn landlocked town and the awkward silence nearly freezes your tiny fragile heart until it sticks its approval-seeking tongue to an icy metal fence post on purpose just to appease everyone because you're new and you need friends.
A Facebook friend recently shared a post from Alice 105.9 featuring a T-shirt that reads: "I don't mean to interrupt people. I just randomly remember things and get really excited." It didn't even occur to me that interrupting was a problem until I left the East Coast. In fact, many people there might assume, unless you cut in every few sentences to show that you're connecting to the speaker, that: a) you're not paying attention, b) that you actually don't give a crap about what they're talking about or c) worst of all, you're completely clueless and therefore have no earthly right to be in this conversation in the first place.
Speed is one of the highest of values along the urbanized Eastern seaboard. To stand in line for coffee at Dunkin Donuts (because no self-respecting Yankee would pay $4.75 for a cup of effin' coffee, thank you very much) at Penn Station in New York City during rush hour is to witness an ingeniously-orchestrated military operation of the highest import. You damn well better know what it is you want, down to the last detail, long before a cashier subpoenas you from one of three customer lines, upon which you order loudly and definitively while simultaneously paying and offering a curt nod of appreciation all at once before you enter another air raid formation for pickup. After which you get the hell out of the way, even if someone else (probably a tourist) accidentally took your drink and you're stuck with theirs. Because tough shit, we're in a hurry here. When I applied the same rules of engagement in the Midwest, people regarded me as a rude, pushy broad who hadn't the decency to ask how their day was going before I brazenly got right down to ordering my food like a marauding barbarian.
Cut to the chase. Lose the foreplay. Gimme the punchline. What's the bottom line. These are the rules of speech etiquette in densely-populated places where slowing down for a millisecond could cause a 16-car pileup. A typical phone call to a family member in a big city might go something like, "Hey. Quick question: What was the name of that restaurant you were telling me about? Got it! Thanks. Bye." Expediency shows the utmost respect because everyone's in a rush because there are too many damn people everywhere and you've gotta get there - the parking space, the restaurant, the show, the colonoscopy - before they do.
As writer Nick Paumgarten described it in the November 3, 2014, issue of The New Yorker, "smooth open road is so rare, at least in the denser parts of [New York City], that a lead foot can hardly resist the urge to hit the gas. In a city of lost time—there’s never enough, never enough—any chance to regain some is sweet." But a recently reduced speed limit to 25mph in the city may impede this expediency. "Now we demonize speed," Paumgarten writes. "This feels funny: a city that has long identified itself as sleepless and fast, aspiring to everything lickety-split, is being asked to slow down. Slow food, slow money, now slow cars—the New York minute will henceforth be sixty seconds long."
The manic competition of an overcrowded populace for limited resources can breed not only efficiency but also, in many cases, excellence. You are never the only game in town. You will never be a big fish in a small pond. And you certainly can't stick a "Gone fishing" sign on your window when business is slow. Because it's never slow. And if it is, then it's your own damn fault 'cause there's plenty of customers out there, you lazy bum.
But recently I've realized that operating at Autobahn in a place that moves at school zone can actually be a form of violence. Putting more energy into things than is merited for the situation makes me uptight, irritable and impatient. I am judgy, cranky and unkind. I fume about how much more efficiently everything could run if people would just snap. I become a petty tyrant inside, obsessively scheming about how to control everyone like a chess piece so they are on top of their game at all times. I frankly get mean, if only in my own mind.
So, if I want to be all Gandhi nonviolent about things, the kindest thing I can do is to not be in a rush. Which means first and foremost that I need to be on time and not wait until the last minute to get out the door, only to be incensed that shit isn't running like clockwork like it damn well should and everything is taking twice as long and now I'm freakin' late thanks to all you complacent Type B idiots out there. I may have it in my mind that it should take 7 minutes to get to work. And technically it does, between the hours of 2:17 and 4:38am, when no one is on the road. That doesn't change the reality that it takes more like 12 because people where I now live drive the speed limit - who does this? - and don't run yellow lights.
In an informal survey from a recent Facebook post, here are a few suggestions that friends have made for avoiding the homicidality of tardiness. Set your watch 6 minutes fast. Calculate the time it takes to get where you need to go and leave 15-20 minutes earlier than that. Set constant reminders on your phone. Get everything ready the night before. Set your clocks 10 minutes fast. Calculate how long it takes to get where you need to go and round up by 5 minutes. Lie to yourself that every appointment is actually 15 minutes earlier than it is. Ask to be included on the Caribbean invitee list, which guarantees you will receive an invitation that a given event starts 2 hours earlier than it actually does in hopes that you and your fellow islanders might be on time.
I've been giving some of these suggestions a try of late. They really do work. And you know what? I'm a nicer person for it. I take my time with things more and make mistakes less. I hold the door for people more often. I let other cars in more readily when they need to merge. I even let people cut in front of me in line if they seem rushed. I'm more Dalai Lama "kindness is my religion" about things. In fact, this has become a new morning prayer to start my day: "May I be especially kind to myself and others today." It's not every day that I live up to this vision, but at least I am amenable to cultivating the conditions that might make it more possible.
Best of all, the thing I feared hasn't happened. I haven't lost my urban edge. I am still an exceptionally high-energy person, but now that energy runs smoothly and sustainably rather than fast-furious-crash-rematch. I continue to stay on top of style trends. I love a noisy, boisterous crowd. I regularly shave and depilate, even in the winter. One-liners flow freely from my lips. As does profanity, which is another point of divergence in cultural norms.
That is one heart-warming touch of home I agonizingly miss now that I'm living inland. To me, people from SoFla use the perfect ratio of profanity. It is part of our festive humor, our stress relief and our vida loca zest for life. Profanity amongst family, friends and close associates is a sign of bonding and respect, and an aptly-timed f-bomb demonstrates wit, pluck and mental acuity. Swearing is also a convenient shortcut to more descriptive, thoughtful language, which works swimmingly amid the time-strapped. And it's just darn good fun.
Before I relocated to the Southwest, I had never before lived in a place where so many people were so offended by swearing, and frankly, it still drives me...wait for it...bat shit crazy. I actually feel less trust toward people who never cuss, as though perhaps they are not being honest somehow. As though they pretend not to fart in public or have sex with the lights on ever. Because, really, who doesn't have evil world domination fantasies and other twisted crap going through their head sometimes?
Wait, kindness is my... Oh, fuck it. I don't have time for this shit.
This is not an exaggeration. While it may be a geological fluke that the southern tip of Florida happens to be connected to the continental United States, for all intents and purposes, SoFla is Caribbean. My hometown is a mirror image of the Greater Antilles, with which we Miamians have more in common than with our fellow citizens in the peninsula or Panhandle. We have 70-degree winter days and swaying palm trees, native orchids and wild parrots. We eat Christmas dinner by the pool. We hardly ever wear shoes. We have freakin' mangos - mangos, for God's sake! - growing in the backyard. And pretty much no one speaks English as their first language. Entire neighborhoods don't speak it as their second.
This sense of being a stranger in your country of birth can happen not only in major ports of immigration like Miami, New York and San Francisco. It is just as true when moving from one state to another. The U.S. is comprised of such a massive swath of continent that each state is, in all practicality, its own country. The laws are different. The infrastructure varies considerably (try this some time for fun: drive top speed from Pagosa Springs, CO, to Chama, NM, and see if you and your tires don't notice an immediate change in road conditions the moment you see the "¡Bienvenidos a Nuevo Mexico!" sign). Your insurance policies don't automatically transfer, even if you stay with the same company, so you suddenly have a half dozen pre-existing conditions that won't be covered now that you've relocated. And if you are a licensed professional in one state, do not assume for one second that you can legitimately practice in another state without paying an obscene amount in fees and taking yet another irrelevant board exam about absolutely nothing you have ever learned in school or have ever done at work in 15 years in the field.
But the most disorienting aspect of interstate relocation is the difference in cultural norms. What is thought rude in Nebraska might actually be considered a compliment in Massachusetts. A taboo in Maryland could be completely socially acceptable in Nevada (where, let's face it, pretty much anything goes). When my step-sister came to visit me at college in Boston with her Annie Lennox circa 1990 platinum spiked hair, an old-timer in the North End (Beantown's answer to Little Italy) walked up to her and demanded, "Hey! What's with the hair? I liked it the other way!" "What other way?" she shot back. "You've never seen me before in my life." "I don't know," he teased, "but any way is better than that!" We all died laughing. But you simply cannot pull that shit in Omaha.
Of course, nobody tells you this explicitly. You just have to find out the hard way when you step into a big pile of it in front of the whole damn landlocked town and the awkward silence nearly freezes your tiny fragile heart until it sticks its approval-seeking tongue to an icy metal fence post on purpose just to appease everyone because you're new and you need friends.
A Facebook friend recently shared a post from Alice 105.9 featuring a T-shirt that reads: "I don't mean to interrupt people. I just randomly remember things and get really excited." It didn't even occur to me that interrupting was a problem until I left the East Coast. In fact, many people there might assume, unless you cut in every few sentences to show that you're connecting to the speaker, that: a) you're not paying attention, b) that you actually don't give a crap about what they're talking about or c) worst of all, you're completely clueless and therefore have no earthly right to be in this conversation in the first place.
Speed is one of the highest of values along the urbanized Eastern seaboard. To stand in line for coffee at Dunkin Donuts (because no self-respecting Yankee would pay $4.75 for a cup of effin' coffee, thank you very much) at Penn Station in New York City during rush hour is to witness an ingeniously-orchestrated military operation of the highest import. You damn well better know what it is you want, down to the last detail, long before a cashier subpoenas you from one of three customer lines, upon which you order loudly and definitively while simultaneously paying and offering a curt nod of appreciation all at once before you enter another air raid formation for pickup. After which you get the hell out of the way, even if someone else (probably a tourist) accidentally took your drink and you're stuck with theirs. Because tough shit, we're in a hurry here. When I applied the same rules of engagement in the Midwest, people regarded me as a rude, pushy broad who hadn't the decency to ask how their day was going before I brazenly got right down to ordering my food like a marauding barbarian.
Cut to the chase. Lose the foreplay. Gimme the punchline. What's the bottom line. These are the rules of speech etiquette in densely-populated places where slowing down for a millisecond could cause a 16-car pileup. A typical phone call to a family member in a big city might go something like, "Hey. Quick question: What was the name of that restaurant you were telling me about? Got it! Thanks. Bye." Expediency shows the utmost respect because everyone's in a rush because there are too many damn people everywhere and you've gotta get there - the parking space, the restaurant, the show, the colonoscopy - before they do.
As writer Nick Paumgarten described it in the November 3, 2014, issue of The New Yorker, "smooth open road is so rare, at least in the denser parts of [New York City], that a lead foot can hardly resist the urge to hit the gas. In a city of lost time—there’s never enough, never enough—any chance to regain some is sweet." But a recently reduced speed limit to 25mph in the city may impede this expediency. "Now we demonize speed," Paumgarten writes. "This feels funny: a city that has long identified itself as sleepless and fast, aspiring to everything lickety-split, is being asked to slow down. Slow food, slow money, now slow cars—the New York minute will henceforth be sixty seconds long."
The manic competition of an overcrowded populace for limited resources can breed not only efficiency but also, in many cases, excellence. You are never the only game in town. You will never be a big fish in a small pond. And you certainly can't stick a "Gone fishing" sign on your window when business is slow. Because it's never slow. And if it is, then it's your own damn fault 'cause there's plenty of customers out there, you lazy bum.
But recently I've realized that operating at Autobahn in a place that moves at school zone can actually be a form of violence. Putting more energy into things than is merited for the situation makes me uptight, irritable and impatient. I am judgy, cranky and unkind. I fume about how much more efficiently everything could run if people would just snap. I become a petty tyrant inside, obsessively scheming about how to control everyone like a chess piece so they are on top of their game at all times. I frankly get mean, if only in my own mind.
So, if I want to be all Gandhi nonviolent about things, the kindest thing I can do is to not be in a rush. Which means first and foremost that I need to be on time and not wait until the last minute to get out the door, only to be incensed that shit isn't running like clockwork like it damn well should and everything is taking twice as long and now I'm freakin' late thanks to all you complacent Type B idiots out there. I may have it in my mind that it should take 7 minutes to get to work. And technically it does, between the hours of 2:17 and 4:38am, when no one is on the road. That doesn't change the reality that it takes more like 12 because people where I now live drive the speed limit - who does this? - and don't run yellow lights.
In an informal survey from a recent Facebook post, here are a few suggestions that friends have made for avoiding the homicidality of tardiness. Set your watch 6 minutes fast. Calculate the time it takes to get where you need to go and leave 15-20 minutes earlier than that. Set constant reminders on your phone. Get everything ready the night before. Set your clocks 10 minutes fast. Calculate how long it takes to get where you need to go and round up by 5 minutes. Lie to yourself that every appointment is actually 15 minutes earlier than it is. Ask to be included on the Caribbean invitee list, which guarantees you will receive an invitation that a given event starts 2 hours earlier than it actually does in hopes that you and your fellow islanders might be on time.
I've been giving some of these suggestions a try of late. They really do work. And you know what? I'm a nicer person for it. I take my time with things more and make mistakes less. I hold the door for people more often. I let other cars in more readily when they need to merge. I even let people cut in front of me in line if they seem rushed. I'm more Dalai Lama "kindness is my religion" about things. In fact, this has become a new morning prayer to start my day: "May I be especially kind to myself and others today." It's not every day that I live up to this vision, but at least I am amenable to cultivating the conditions that might make it more possible.
Best of all, the thing I feared hasn't happened. I haven't lost my urban edge. I am still an exceptionally high-energy person, but now that energy runs smoothly and sustainably rather than fast-furious-crash-rematch. I continue to stay on top of style trends. I love a noisy, boisterous crowd. I regularly shave and depilate, even in the winter. One-liners flow freely from my lips. As does profanity, which is another point of divergence in cultural norms.
That is one heart-warming touch of home I agonizingly miss now that I'm living inland. To me, people from SoFla use the perfect ratio of profanity. It is part of our festive humor, our stress relief and our vida loca zest for life. Profanity amongst family, friends and close associates is a sign of bonding and respect, and an aptly-timed f-bomb demonstrates wit, pluck and mental acuity. Swearing is also a convenient shortcut to more descriptive, thoughtful language, which works swimmingly amid the time-strapped. And it's just darn good fun.
Before I relocated to the Southwest, I had never before lived in a place where so many people were so offended by swearing, and frankly, it still drives me...wait for it...bat shit crazy. I actually feel less trust toward people who never cuss, as though perhaps they are not being honest somehow. As though they pretend not to fart in public or have sex with the lights on ever. Because, really, who doesn't have evil world domination fantasies and other twisted crap going through their head sometimes?
Wait, kindness is my... Oh, fuck it. I don't have time for this shit.
Saturday, January 17, 2015
Our Lady of the Blessed Bean
My husband recently called me out on my coffee habit. You could say it was a sort of intervention, only the focus was more financial than emotional. He asked me to come clean about my daily spending on this particular vice, and when I did, promptly informed me that we could purchase a round-trip flight to a major European capital in high season with the amount of money I blow at coffee shops annually.
But then he asked me what I get out of the coffee house experience. I agreed that I could make my own coffee but that it wouldn't be the same, and not just because of, lacking professional equipment in my kitchen, the inferior quality of the final product. There is something else I get out of going to get coffee. When I thought more about it, I realized that my daily trip to a coffee shop is actually an organizing principle in my day. It is a ritual, like going to daily Mass or zazen for solace, community, nourishment and the comfort of familiarity. The java itself is only one small part of this.
A good local coffee shop presents with all the beauty and attention to detail as a traditional spiritual sanctuary, with its characteristic coffee bean incense, its mood-altering music, its fellowship of regular worshippers, the imbibing of specially-prepared and blessed bread (biscotti) and wine (espresso) to uplift our spirits and commune with something greater than we are. In this case, that something could be the deep care that local bakers and roasters put into sourcing, preparing and serving their community. Or the warm welcome we get from our favorite cashier who knows our name and our drink. Or the friendly banter of customers making small talk in line. Or the sacred mandala of coffee art atop our foaming drink. We even tithe to the almighty tip jar as a token of our gratitude and hope for the longevity of our baristas' sacred work. More than once I've had revelatory lattes that I could swear were prepared by the seraphim in high heaven.
It turns out that coffee drinking as spiritual practice is not all that far-fetched. I was recently told about a traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony, not unlike a Japanese tea rite. The participant described an elaborate process in which her hostess hand-roasted green coffee beans over a fire, crushed the roasted beans with a mortar and pestle, boiled the grounds in water several times, and served it to guests in tiny cups with great care. I later read about coffee ceremonies in which frankincense resin was burned on the coals and guests were invited to inhale the scent of the roasting beans as part of the ritual. Sometimes cinnamon and cardamom are added to enrich the experience. Like many indigenous practices around the world, the coffee ceremony transforms an everyday staple into a transcendent experience.
There is also the Abyssinian legend that coffee for human consumption was first discovered by an unassuming goatherd who noticed his animals acting especially frisky after ingesting the fruit of the coffee plant. This might be a tall tale, but what is not is that people eventually figured out how to cultivate, harvest, roast and brew the berries of the coffee plant into the spunky concoction that fuels an approximate 63 gazillion percent of the business world today. This, as the story goes, somehow led to Coptic monks using coffee to stay alert while studying scripture for long hours. And that's, like, totally spiritual, right?
On a secular level, there is also luxury inherent in a complex coffee drink that ends in a vowel. The way it feels to splurge a little every day and take a few humane moments out of the modern workaday rut, which in the U.S. typically does not include a lunch hour or even a cigarette break (unless you're in international waters). The way it feels to spend on something for yourself that doesn't have any practical or lasting purpose. The way it feels to indulge a bit every day amid a lifestyle where down time happens only when someone's sick, a flight is delayed or you've finished all five seasons of Breaking Bad on Netflix.
There's even the status symbol of it all. Like a Louis-Vuitton logo bag, a to-go cup from a coffee shop signals disposable income. It shows that while I don't need this, I can afford it. I am successful because I can buy a product that I could easily make at home, albeit not as well. As anti-eco as it sounds, I have actually found myself feeling less luxurious when I bring my own travel mug for my daily grind, as though it were somehow less opulent to refill a permanent mug than to use and throw away a new disposable one. A family member who grew up in the poorest of Caribbean countries once told me that this may be a reason why it can sometimes be difficult to encourage recycling amongst people who once struggled to survive. Throwing stuff away denotes wealth. It signals that you have so much that you don't need to hang onto things. Reusing a Mason jar for iced tea can feel like poverty to those who grew up having to do that out of necessity, however boho farm-to-table charming it may seem to those who have not.
Yuppie coffee is kind of a funny concept considering I come from a city where fancy coffee drinks are actually very affordable. Café cubano may be priced like a poor man's espresso, but poor in quality it is not. Cuban coffee is a specially-roasted espresso carefully prepared for ultimate crema (the delicate, carmel-colored foam that forms atop a shot of well-made espresso) and, if you wish, perfectly-frothed milk. It is strong, sweet, satisfying and cheap. I like somewhat bitter flavors, so I order mine sin azúcar, and it is homemade mother's milk in a cup. Latino or not, in any given neighborhood in Miami, todo el mundo buys at least one coffee drink a day, most costing $1.50 or less. Many treat their entire office to a mini-shot of cortadito in the late afternoons, when human biorhythms naturally wane, for less than a bottle of Daisani. Do not for a second think that the low price heralds a diluted brew. As an Internet meme puts it, "Cuban coffee: The reason crystal meth never took off in Miami."
A friend recently asked me to name my favorite coffee shop in our Southwestern city. It depends on your drink, I told her. I have favorites for iced coffee and other favorites for breve latte. I love one place's nitrous iced coffee but can't stand their espresso. Another place has epic espresso but their latte drinks are too milky for my taste. Some places don't carry dark chocolate powder, which is an essential for sprinkling on foamy drinks, but their chai drinks are spicy not sweet the way I like them. Some places the chai and espresso are both average, but mixed together, you've got yourself a dirty chai cocktail to warm your bones all day. Then there are the chain places that are your only choices while on the road or in the suburbs. Road trips are the only time I require a shot of artificially flavored syrup to mitigate a typically less than robust brew.
Writing this, it occurs to me that the above description parallels a food travel show, where a well-heeled chef waxes poetic about how the mojitos are sublime at such-and-such club, but if you want an old-fashioned done right, you best get yourself to the little-known corner dive down the street. In fact, I've often wondered whether all the ritual and reverence around complex coffee drinks isn't for me a sort of substitution for bar culture. When I ceased my alcohol intake 20 years ago, I remember missing both the conviviality and the baroque details of drink. The red wine glasses versus the white wine glasses. The cognac snifters and champagne flutes. The dark wood camaraderie of a microbrewery next to the airy glamor of a chill lounge. I missed telling men what my drink was, and I missed the pleasure of hanging out with a bunch of strangers enjoying the simple things in life. So if I had to choose between going back to a way of life that proved disastrous for me or dropping some cash on hipster coffee drinks, I would chose the latter. Besides, a latte is still cheaper than a mojito in most places.
In spite of my best rationalizations, I have conceded that I really don't need to purchase a rich coffee drink every single day. I thought about all my favorite coffee drinks and which ones I could most authentically replicate at home. I decided on the iced toddy, a deeply flavorful concoction steeped for 24 hours cold or at room temperature. Two of my favorite coffee shops use this method, and it was easy enough to find detailed instructions via online foodie sites. My husband is helping make my own New Orleans-style Cafe du Monde cold brew with chicory, and it's pretty darn tasty. I also recently purchased both an AeroPress, which makes ecstatically authentic espresso, and an electric milk-frothing appliance, for homegrown lattes and cappuccinos, and they are actually rather awesome.
They won't completely take the place of holy communion followed by pastry in the fellowship hall. But they might reduce the frequency of my daily $4 (with tip) coffee habit enough that our family can afford to enjoy vowel-ending coffee drinks in some of the countries where they actually originated.
But then he asked me what I get out of the coffee house experience. I agreed that I could make my own coffee but that it wouldn't be the same, and not just because of, lacking professional equipment in my kitchen, the inferior quality of the final product. There is something else I get out of going to get coffee. When I thought more about it, I realized that my daily trip to a coffee shop is actually an organizing principle in my day. It is a ritual, like going to daily Mass or zazen for solace, community, nourishment and the comfort of familiarity. The java itself is only one small part of this.
A good local coffee shop presents with all the beauty and attention to detail as a traditional spiritual sanctuary, with its characteristic coffee bean incense, its mood-altering music, its fellowship of regular worshippers, the imbibing of specially-prepared and blessed bread (biscotti) and wine (espresso) to uplift our spirits and commune with something greater than we are. In this case, that something could be the deep care that local bakers and roasters put into sourcing, preparing and serving their community. Or the warm welcome we get from our favorite cashier who knows our name and our drink. Or the friendly banter of customers making small talk in line. Or the sacred mandala of coffee art atop our foaming drink. We even tithe to the almighty tip jar as a token of our gratitude and hope for the longevity of our baristas' sacred work. More than once I've had revelatory lattes that I could swear were prepared by the seraphim in high heaven.
It turns out that coffee drinking as spiritual practice is not all that far-fetched. I was recently told about a traditional Ethiopian coffee ceremony, not unlike a Japanese tea rite. The participant described an elaborate process in which her hostess hand-roasted green coffee beans over a fire, crushed the roasted beans with a mortar and pestle, boiled the grounds in water several times, and served it to guests in tiny cups with great care. I later read about coffee ceremonies in which frankincense resin was burned on the coals and guests were invited to inhale the scent of the roasting beans as part of the ritual. Sometimes cinnamon and cardamom are added to enrich the experience. Like many indigenous practices around the world, the coffee ceremony transforms an everyday staple into a transcendent experience.
There is also the Abyssinian legend that coffee for human consumption was first discovered by an unassuming goatherd who noticed his animals acting especially frisky after ingesting the fruit of the coffee plant. This might be a tall tale, but what is not is that people eventually figured out how to cultivate, harvest, roast and brew the berries of the coffee plant into the spunky concoction that fuels an approximate 63 gazillion percent of the business world today. This, as the story goes, somehow led to Coptic monks using coffee to stay alert while studying scripture for long hours. And that's, like, totally spiritual, right?
On a secular level, there is also luxury inherent in a complex coffee drink that ends in a vowel. The way it feels to splurge a little every day and take a few humane moments out of the modern workaday rut, which in the U.S. typically does not include a lunch hour or even a cigarette break (unless you're in international waters). The way it feels to spend on something for yourself that doesn't have any practical or lasting purpose. The way it feels to indulge a bit every day amid a lifestyle where down time happens only when someone's sick, a flight is delayed or you've finished all five seasons of Breaking Bad on Netflix.
There's even the status symbol of it all. Like a Louis-Vuitton logo bag, a to-go cup from a coffee shop signals disposable income. It shows that while I don't need this, I can afford it. I am successful because I can buy a product that I could easily make at home, albeit not as well. As anti-eco as it sounds, I have actually found myself feeling less luxurious when I bring my own travel mug for my daily grind, as though it were somehow less opulent to refill a permanent mug than to use and throw away a new disposable one. A family member who grew up in the poorest of Caribbean countries once told me that this may be a reason why it can sometimes be difficult to encourage recycling amongst people who once struggled to survive. Throwing stuff away denotes wealth. It signals that you have so much that you don't need to hang onto things. Reusing a Mason jar for iced tea can feel like poverty to those who grew up having to do that out of necessity, however boho farm-to-table charming it may seem to those who have not.
Yuppie coffee is kind of a funny concept considering I come from a city where fancy coffee drinks are actually very affordable. Café cubano may be priced like a poor man's espresso, but poor in quality it is not. Cuban coffee is a specially-roasted espresso carefully prepared for ultimate crema (the delicate, carmel-colored foam that forms atop a shot of well-made espresso) and, if you wish, perfectly-frothed milk. It is strong, sweet, satisfying and cheap. I like somewhat bitter flavors, so I order mine sin azúcar, and it is homemade mother's milk in a cup. Latino or not, in any given neighborhood in Miami, todo el mundo buys at least one coffee drink a day, most costing $1.50 or less. Many treat their entire office to a mini-shot of cortadito in the late afternoons, when human biorhythms naturally wane, for less than a bottle of Daisani. Do not for a second think that the low price heralds a diluted brew. As an Internet meme puts it, "Cuban coffee: The reason crystal meth never took off in Miami."
A friend recently asked me to name my favorite coffee shop in our Southwestern city. It depends on your drink, I told her. I have favorites for iced coffee and other favorites for breve latte. I love one place's nitrous iced coffee but can't stand their espresso. Another place has epic espresso but their latte drinks are too milky for my taste. Some places don't carry dark chocolate powder, which is an essential for sprinkling on foamy drinks, but their chai drinks are spicy not sweet the way I like them. Some places the chai and espresso are both average, but mixed together, you've got yourself a dirty chai cocktail to warm your bones all day. Then there are the chain places that are your only choices while on the road or in the suburbs. Road trips are the only time I require a shot of artificially flavored syrup to mitigate a typically less than robust brew.
Writing this, it occurs to me that the above description parallels a food travel show, where a well-heeled chef waxes poetic about how the mojitos are sublime at such-and-such club, but if you want an old-fashioned done right, you best get yourself to the little-known corner dive down the street. In fact, I've often wondered whether all the ritual and reverence around complex coffee drinks isn't for me a sort of substitution for bar culture. When I ceased my alcohol intake 20 years ago, I remember missing both the conviviality and the baroque details of drink. The red wine glasses versus the white wine glasses. The cognac snifters and champagne flutes. The dark wood camaraderie of a microbrewery next to the airy glamor of a chill lounge. I missed telling men what my drink was, and I missed the pleasure of hanging out with a bunch of strangers enjoying the simple things in life. So if I had to choose between going back to a way of life that proved disastrous for me or dropping some cash on hipster coffee drinks, I would chose the latter. Besides, a latte is still cheaper than a mojito in most places.
In spite of my best rationalizations, I have conceded that I really don't need to purchase a rich coffee drink every single day. I thought about all my favorite coffee drinks and which ones I could most authentically replicate at home. I decided on the iced toddy, a deeply flavorful concoction steeped for 24 hours cold or at room temperature. Two of my favorite coffee shops use this method, and it was easy enough to find detailed instructions via online foodie sites. My husband is helping make my own New Orleans-style Cafe du Monde cold brew with chicory, and it's pretty darn tasty. I also recently purchased both an AeroPress, which makes ecstatically authentic espresso, and an electric milk-frothing appliance, for homegrown lattes and cappuccinos, and they are actually rather awesome.
They won't completely take the place of holy communion followed by pastry in the fellowship hall. But they might reduce the frequency of my daily $4 (with tip) coffee habit enough that our family can afford to enjoy vowel-ending coffee drinks in some of the countries where they actually originated.
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