Reminiscing. Play it Again Sam's.

The door of the CoffeeCat is heavy wood and you have to push it in the center of the handle with a certain amount of compact umph for it to swing easily open. This morning and without any anticipation upon the push of the door I got struck in the gut with the most endured sense of wistful longing, an immediate and aching clutch on my heart the moment I stepped inside.

It was the tunneled noise of the milk-steamer that did it. And the warm bouancy, from all the rain outside, inside on the air.

I scanned the room for a recognizable face and there was Liz, the barista I got to know first when I started coming here last year. She is in her senior year of highschool and an athlete so I rarely see her anymore.

Just that little familiarity added a certain tweak to my heart.

Sometimes, with the least amount of expectation or warning, this happens to me. I am struck by sudden and complete awe for life. For its fleeting passing. For all the little moments that are all the time sliding us by.

This morning it descended upon me in a memory so physical I could've stepped back in time. I worked as a barista in a coffee shop in Chestertown my senior year of college. 2001 and most of 02. Mornings in the winter each step on the cold earth I'd pound closer to downtown my breath would grow more severe--I'd clutch whatever thin little sweater I was wearing harder across my chest and see my knuckles redden by the chill. It seems it was always gray that winter. The door, when it pushed open, rang little bells and my glasses immediately would cover in steam and my nose fill with the most alluring savory smell of the homemade muffins, Comfort Food, that Natalie Comfort was busy baking. One of the other baristas, almost always, was already at work steaming themselves a morning wake-me-up drink.

I dropped out of college twice from drugging and booze--the second time it was in order to get clean. The year I worked as a barista, my senior year, was the only year I was clean while in school, and it's really the only year that I remember with any sort of clarity. And they are sweet, specific sensory memories. The inborn joy that bubbles out of Katie that would jolt my heart every Thursday afternoon when we would meet and walk in to poetry class together; the tweak of enjoyment seeing the new outfit or wig that Libby would have on when I would turn the corner on High Street and see her in front of the coffee shop on her smoke break; the peace, inherent, of the way Jazmine moved across our apartment--the way one person's nature can wordlessly inspire you to want more from yourself. Dear God did I relive the collective experiences of that time in a mere instant this morning~and oh did it make my heart cry out in longing over what used to be.

It made me think quite instantly about other times in my life that are no more than memory~other times and whole other groups of fabulous, wild, hysterical, ridiculous people that are actively no more to me today than, if I am lucky, a facebook status update. Crofton, the pizza shop, 6th street, Ocean Pines Beach Club, the boys from the beach. I guess what ultimately this experience did was force me in to the reality of what I've quietly been witnessing and coming to terms with in the past few months: that too, Chestertown, the people there and memories, Play it Again, Andy's, Truslow Road, Anngar....all those too will pass away. Have already begun to, and how the aspects of this have hit me with a surrendering that is much like grief.

There is no other way to put it than that. I am looking forward, in great joy and enthusiasm, towards this next unwrit chapter of my life. It thrills me to no end the great, raw power in this~of choice and faith when mixed together. The pure alchemy of it. Yet the picture would be incomplete without the other...the saying goodbye. I have learned that all things pass, and yet somehow come again~that this is the thing about life. Most experiences merely change form, whether they are relationships, aspects of our selves or each other, the work we do, the family we spend time with, the ways in general we spend our time. There is at work always a greater thread that is weaving us and nudging us and it is part the tapestry--and part our choice of the stitches me choose to make, that make up all of life. I am lucky today to still have close, amazying friends that span all parts of my journey, and too grateful as hell for social sites like Facebook because even if we dont actually talk or see one another--knowing for example that Jess Singleton is happy and has a dog and a job she enjoys out someplace in Arizona, or that Ryan Muller is surfing and chilling in Florida gives me infinite peace.

I am in the Coffee Cat right now, preparing to work on my book. A warm-up as Erika would say. Sweet sweet Erika from all the way back chorus and basketball practice at Arthur Slade.
In less than a month Coffee Cat will no longer be my regular haunt. Once, my senior year of college, the poet Li Young Lee came to speak to our Contemporary Poetry Class. He was asked about faith, and his belief in God. He could not answer specific to a godhead, or even to faith, but what he did say was that LIFE is in this moment, and this moment is also always changing and passing on by. I make practice, he said, of centering myself much as I can throughout my day and then in that centered moment, reminding myself by saying Thank you, Goodbye.

Ahhhh, reminder to be present. Thank you, good bye.