Always Stories…

I’ve been having a full on “monday morning”, and by that mean that I didn’t want to get up this morning, I’m grumpy for no real reason and everything I try to do seems to be, if not actually being, harder than it needs to be. I have a lunch meeting across town, so decided to go over early and spend a couple of hours at one of my favorite coffee shops that I rarely get to visit. The best part about this place is that they make the absolute best raspberry mocha latte on the planet.  Its not technically on their menu – I discovered it one day when it was a special, and I’ve requested it each time I’ve come since, and they have always obliged.

This raspberry mocha latte was my focus and my purpose for moving all morning. Its rainy and cold out, and traffic was worse than expected getting here, and then all the free parking was gone, and I almost gave up, but the thought of that cup of sweet coffee kept me going. I parked in the garage, took the elevator down, stepped in a puddle and finally walked through the doors of the coffee shop, to find that every couch and comfortable chair had someone in it already. If I were in a better mood, I would take an open chair in a grouping of occupied chairs, but I’m feeling extra-unsocial today, so instead I picked a nice table by the window where I can watch the rain and the cars. There was a long line at the counter, so I decided to get my laptop out and get set up before getting my coffee. Internet didn’t work. Or more specifically, my laptop wasn’t connecting, so had to restart. As I’m restarting, I notice the line is gone, so I grab my wallet and blackberry’s and head toward the counter, and promptly drop one of the blackberry’s (the client one), and the back pops off and the battery goes flying and the people at the nearby tables go “oohhh” in a way that I know is meant to be sympathetic, but that I find intrusive.

I get up to the counter, a new girl is there, I order the raspberry mocha latte and she gives me a skeptical look. “Its not on your menu, but I’ve always been able to get one,” I say, smiling my best friendly smile and thinking I may be driven to violence if she won’t give my latte. She enters “flavor coffee” into the computer and I nod. She puts in hazelnut as the flavor b/c they don’t have a button for raspberry, and I nod, b/c this is what they usually do. I also order a muffin (I’m having a bad day, screw the diet), and she gets the muffin and I take it to my table, wait for a few minutes and then head over to the place where they make the coffee to wait.

After a few minutes the barrista says “you had the raspberry vanilla mocha?” and I hesitate and think, “I don’t have the energy to argue this. I’m not meant to have my coffee today.” So I say, “Ok, sure,” thinking that I might discover a new drink today. He looks at the order slip and says “did you order a raspberry with hazelnut?” and I said, “no actually, I ordered raspberry with mocha,” and he says with a smile ”OK. Well this has hazelnut, so I’ll have to make another.” And I say “Sorry,” because Iam sorry -I ordered off menu, and I know that’s just asking for trouble for everyone, and now they’ve wasted a large cup of coffee. But he says “Don’t be sorry. Please! You asked for something, you should get the thing you asked for, not something else.”

I smiled and said “thank you,” and he said “Of course. So how is your monday going?” and in an uncharacteristic burst of sharing I said “Not great. Its been this coffee that’s kept me going to get here,” and he said “Oh really? Having one of those mornings where nothing is working, huh?” and I felt this urge to hug him for understanding.

“Yes,” I said. “That’s exactly the problem.”

He said “You didn’t have to go to work today though?”

I said, “I’m self employed, so actually I am working,” and I gesture toward the table where I set my laptop up. “Or I will be once I get my coffee.”

He then goes on to comment on how nice it must be to be my own boss, and even on a bad day, at least I don’t have to face a boss, and I agree that that is a perk. Then he asks me what I do  and I tell him I’m a non-profit consultant, and he asks what that means, and I start to explain, and find myself enjoying talking about my work, which is rarely the case. He’s not American, although I can’t identify where he is from from his accent,  and he tells me that his  father worked for an NGO “over there.” And as he’s making my perfect raspberry mocha we discuss the differences between working for an NGO in a developing country and working for a non-profit over here, and he decides, as he’s frothing my milk, that the difference is that here it’s about getting the money, and there its about doing the work and making a difference. On a broad sense, I don’t necessarily agree, but I see his point, and I feel the familiar tug of longing to be doing hands on service again…but I quickly put that urge back in its box and accept my cup of coffee and smile, a genuine – reflection-of-happiness smile for the first time all day.

And then I get back to my table, and decide to use blogging as an excuse to avoid work for a while longer, and in checking my new comments, find a second comment from someone named Marty, and as I’m wondering who this person is, I read the comment and find out that its my dad, using an alias, and I laugh, the first genuine – reflection-of- happiness laugh all day. And I think that today might turn out ok afterall.

Ok, so this blog post was supposed to be put up in like, early February. But things kept changing in my life and I kept delaying committing to this post, until now. And then of course its an insanely long post, so I’ve broken it up into pieces. That’s my favor to you and your productivity. I hope you’ll forgive the delayed coverage of my inaugural experience, but I figure better late than never

When I turned 30 a few years ago, I decided that I was going to face, and accept, certain aspects of my personality that were unlikely to change. One of those things was that I’m kind of an emotion junkie (this was maybe only a revelation to me). I am highly emotional, but I also look for emotional meaning and significance in just about everything. I always look for the bigger meaning, the emotional context or the larger social or personal significance of everything. I have been known to go into drama withdrawal when my life has been (too) stable. Also, I’m a ceremony whore; I’ll get emotional during any ceremony regardless of its personal meaning or significance,  and I will often turn routine events into “ceremonies”. There are, I suppose, advantages to this. Want to be sure someone will cry at your kid’s baptism? Give me a call. Need an excuse for a party on a Tuesday night? I’ll find it and create a ritual to mark it. But there are also many disadvantages, chief among them that its exhausting always needing to find or apply context or meaning. Plus my life is an endless emotional roller coaster, which may in fact be more exhausting for my friends and family than it is for me, (even considering they only see about 75% of what goes on in my head. I’m usually able to filter, supress or talk myself down from the other 25%).  But I’ve accepted that this is me, and it seems that the people who love me have accepted it as well, and I’ve tried to find constructive uses for that emotional energy, primarily writing and storytelling. But sometimes, events in my life and events in the world come together in a way that puts me into ceremonial/emotional overdrive. Like January 2009, for example.

First up we had Barak Obama’sinauguration. No need to look for emotional significance there, it was was obvious and unavoidable. And yet, I still felt a need to bring it down to my level, to find the impact on my individual life.  I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the inauguration, and while it was cold and crowded it was also an amazing experience. Walking down the street with thousands of other people heading toward the Mall, people singing, chanting, wishing each other well, I was overwhelmed with the feeling of being connected to something bigger than myself, to truly being a part of a moment in history.   I distinctly remember thinking that the idea of change could be more than a slogan, it could be a reality. For maybe the first time in my life, I felt like I wasn’t even fully recognizing or intaking the entirety of the moment – there seemed to be layers of meaning and symbolism that I couldn’t get my head or heart fully around. As we continued to make our way to the mall, I allowed myself to be distracted by issues like navigating the crowds and finding the best route to the Mall. But once we found our spot between a jumbo tron and the Washington Momument my mind once again returned to trying to identify the layers of meaning and symbolism of the experience. As the ceremony started I became very aware of the very significant fact that I was witnessing the peaceful transfer of power – something that I think Americans too often take for granted. I was reminded of the emotions that had flooded through me as I cast my vote for Obama back in November. This was more than just a ceremony. This was the physical, philosophical and symbolic representation of the very essence of what makes this country what it is, for better or worse. 

When I decided to attend the inauguration, I’d had high expectations for getting a solid emotional hit from the experience, but I was also realistic that the reality might not meet my expectations, as is often the case. But in this case, the experience was everything I needed or wanted it to be. Right down to the fact that the person I shared it with was one of my oldest and dearest friends. She currently lives in South Carolina, but since high school has lived in MD, MN, AZ and NY but in the 20 years we’ve known each other we’ve managed to share almost every major milestone in each others lives together from crushes, to heartbreaks, from weddings to child birth, from New Year’s Eve to job and educational achievements. And while it just happened to be that she was the one who braved the cold and the crowds with me on that day, looking back I realize it had a beautiful and perfect symbolism to it. She is a part of my past, but also a part of my future, and it was perfect that we experienced this profound shift in the direction of our country together. We were part of history together, and now its a part of our personal history as well.

Just as I was ready to OD on the levels of meaning and symbolism, reality peaked in just a little.

As soon as Obama’s speech was finished, we, and our roughly 2 million new friends, started to make our way off the mall and hit a massive bottle neck almost immediately. As we stood shoulder to shoulder, chest to back, unable to see what was up ahead, what the delay was or how far we were from freedom, the mood in the crowd began to shift. The first indication of the shift was when I heard a man instruct his friend to ”Just start shoving” in reference to getting through the crowd.  A little while later, someone tried to start the “O-BAM-A” chant that had always succeeded in rallying the crowds before the ceremony, but now was met with a “SHUT UP!” Clearly, we had moved on from our feelings of community and hope and were now just ready to be able to move freely. But I loved that too. I loved how realistic that was, I loved how it shook me out of my philosophical emotional high and brought me back to reality. But then I started to see it as almost a metaphor for the sensibility of our country: hope and community spririt are all well and good when things are easy, when we’re walking freely through the streets, but as soon as our individual space  or experience is negatively affected, hope and community be damned, we want resolution. The irony is that when we break down into a million individuals just trying to take care of ourselves alone, nothing is accomplished. But when we recognize that we are interconnected and therefore interdependent and seek to work within those realities, everyone’s experience improves. To wit: someone finally climbed up on the port-a-potties and described the reason for the delay to the crowd (bottle neck through badly set up fencing), and everyone relaxed and the shoving eased. Until we got restless again – I’m not sure I’ll ever forget the experience of the elderly woman who locked her fists together in the center of her chest, looked me straight in the eye and shoved me, with way more force that I would have imagined, into the back of the person infront of me - But then someone else climbed up and gave an updated report, complete with estimated number of yards to the exit point and what to expect once we passed the exit. In total I think it took us more than an hour to move about 10 yards, but we did it without anyone being trampled or too badly bruised, and I definitely consider that a success.

Once released from the mobs of people, we made our way directly West on Constitution toward Virginia and home. As we followed the crowds of people over the Roosevelt Bridge I was struck with a knowledge that I will never be able to see crowds of people walking over a bridge out of city and not have negative associations to the image. We’ve moved on from 9/11 and other international crisis, but some images will be forever imprinted in my brain and will forever have a very specific significance. But then we stopped to rest in the middle of the bridge, and we sat on the lane divider and I took a picture of my friend with DC behind her and I realized that that could become a new way of remembering a bridge filled with pedestrian traffic exiting a city. Layering of meanings. I love it!

We made it to a metro stop in Virginia, dragged ourselves onto a crowded metro and made our way back to the warm house of a good friend who had a huge dinner waiting for us, and we watched the parade on TV, and then the ceremony again on DVR. It was a good day.

For a “meaning junkie” like me, this day was, quiet simply, heaven.  I’ve been in some serious crowds in DC in the past – July 4th, sporting events etc, and never have I seen people as polite and solicitous to each other as they were on Inauguration day.  I really felt the collective and individual commitment to move on.  To move on from fear, and divisiveness, and distrust, and greed, and uncertainty.  Each step we took toward the Mall, each smile exchanged with a stranger, each high five and call and response cheer was a step toward a new future, a return to optimism and a recognition that while it wouldn’t necessarily be easy, or immediate, we were ready to start again, to start a new page in our history.

Or maybe that was just me. Looking back I can see that I had become rather obsessed with the idea of “moving on” and was looking for examples or instructions on how to do it, or even evidence that it was possible…

And as morning dawned on January 21, I realized I had less than a week to move out of my apartment, and while I’d been “pretending” to start packing by giving loads of stuff to charity and friends, there was no discernable difference in my apartment. Have I mentioned that I’m a certified Pack Rat?

To Be Continued…