oh man.

Oh man. 

I think I am in over my head. 

I love making coffee for people. I used to work for the store that must not be named. I quit that job while in Korea, after realizing that I don't actually have to continue to work for the corporate of America; I didn't have to put together flyers and hang up posters of the new promotional beverage or ask anyone if they wanted to pair a pastry with their coffee. I could choose something else, something other than that, and still not work in an office. So I let it go. But there were parts of it that I missed. When I was in Korea, I would go to The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, and I would look upon the beautiful Korean baristas with envy. I missed my job. I missed the interaction with customers, and the chance to create something delicious for someone that would appreciate it. 

When I returned from my soul crafting summer in another country, I was jobless. I had a few weeks to get by, and I knew I could go back to that part of my life I had let go if necessary, but I really didn't want to. I took a job for a day at Big Al's, where I was allowed, with caution, to use the smoothie machine. I went back the following day to return my shirt. I was getting ancy. I was getting nervous. I was starting to use my credit card. 

With one last ditch effort on Craig's List, I found my match. A local coffee shop looking for a barista. Livable pay. Hiring now. Email resume. I did, right away. It turned out to be one of those it's-a-small-world stories with a happy ending. I had just seen the man I was emailing for the position a few evenings before at a local mexican place. He was with his girlfriend, someone I used to work with. She gave me a stellar recommendation. We talked the next day. I was hired. I was making americanos again. 

This time, though, I was tamping the espresso myself, a task that was done by the machine at my last coffee spot. And this new steam wand didn't shut itself off like the super automatic contraption that had made my previous job revolve around automated button pushing. 

Here I am, seven months into the future, and I still get excited each time I step behind the machine to make a drink. This is a good thing, especially when so many of my customers spend the brief amount of time that our paths cross lamenting the fact that they are leaving me to return to a job that has the tendency to suck the life and soul out of them. My job adds the good stuff back in.  

A local coffee shop here is hosting a latte art competition.  A good portion of my very talented friends make coffee at other places in Tulsa, and will be competing. I put my money in the jar, in a moment sleepy weakness, effectively entering myself into this competition. I am a David among Goliaths. I am in over my head. 

later. maybe.

Sometimes we just have to sit with things. 

In our south's past, when a person would die, someone alive would always stay awake to sit with their body. I read here that it would sometimes be necessary to put buffalo nickels on the eyes of the deceased to keep them closed. Sometimes the body would sit up. The living person just had to sit.

There is a scene in the film "Into the Wild" when the protagonist realizes something monumental. He is ready to go live it out. There is something standing in his way. He has to return to where he came from, and sit it out. 

On my way to work in the mornings, I drive through many lights in a very short distance. The first light determines so much about which route I take. If it's green, I go strait through to Boulder. And then I wait at the red light on Main. If it's red, I turn right and go down Boston, and deal with the surplus of lights that adorn my default route. No matter which route I take, and even if I think I am in some way making it easier on myself, I have to sit somewhere, and wait. 

I think that's one of the reasons why I don't cling to convenience; packaged meals and instant mixes, drive-thru windows and vegetable slicers. It's because life isn't like that. It's just not. Some experiences are exceptions. But it has mostly been my experience that, even on the midst of proactivity, there is a great deal of sitting. 

oven joys.

Snickerdoodles took my baking virginity. They were my first for real-from scratch attempt. It was for a school thing. Something on the inside of me changed. Before the act, there was a moment when I realized that not all good things come from a mix, and that those recipe books collecting dust on my mother's shelf help one build things. I love building things. Especially yummy things. So I built a batch of snickerdoodles. My first cheese cake was a boston cream. I didn't even get a slice. But I enjoyed making the ganache more than I enjoyed all of my graphic design courses in college, combined. My bar phase happened post college; raspberry bars, oatmeal blackberry, and chocolate toffee. When I lived with my brother, he begged me to stop baking with oatmeal.

For the past few years, I have been in - what my customer Mark calls - "an in between phase". Many of my collegiate counterparts have gone in a direction. I have been directionless. This is not a flaw, in my opinion, as it builds belief and character, and hopefully, an understanding of those things I don't want to do. For example, I don't ever want to have a job with a dress code. My first attempt to go to work at William Sonoma, the place of slacks and tucked in shirts, socks and closed toed shoes, was laughable. I dressed and left, read the dress code again, changed, read it again, changed again, and left, almost late and still shrouded in dress code insecurity. I also don't ever again want to work somewhere that requires a bright colored T-Shirt to be worn to work. How would I have discovered these things had I not immersed myself in the in between phase?

I have also discovered that I do, in fact, want baking to be a part of my future. Someday, I would like to own a bakery. Until then, I am weaseling my way into baking where people already come. I worked at Great Harvest for a while, until the bright colored T-shirt began to take away my humanity. It also could have been the getting up at four to make fresh scones for the people that were on their way to the dress-code jobs. Or the fact that I was baking what they told me to instead of what I wanted to; no creative freedom is no good. I quit when my wonderful boss at the coffee shop told me she would buy an oven. She did.

This made my dreams come true, in an almost sort of way. My banana bread has began to change people's lives. A few mornings ago, I baked my first for-sale treat from my own recipe with my own hands and ingredients. It was a cranberry orange muffin. I felt a little like I did in college when we had to present our final pieces to class and have our classmates pick them apart, except the stakes were higher this time, as there was money involved. People would be paying for these treats. I felt uneasy and elated and complete and insecure. I was sure they would be a failure and a success all at the same time, and I had to use butter instead of oil, which added in to the mix an unknown variable.

They started to get golden in the oven. A pleasant aroma began to fill the cafe. I nervously took them from the rack, made a little sign, and placed them in their little plastic display. I wanted to hide. I didn't want anyone to know I made them. I didn't want anyone to buy them. I wanted to sell them all.

One of our regulars came to the counter. He is a construction man with a consistent scowl and a speaker of very, very few words. He ordered a coffee and "one of those," pointing to my muffins. I calmly took a tissue, picked one of the best, and placed it on a plate for him. He couldn't see, but I was doing cart wheels on the inside. My intestines were having a jovial conversation with my spleen. I didn't need to warm it as it was still warm from the oven. He sat in the corner and ate.

I told Margarita how she had made my dreams come true. Construction made came back the next day for another one of "those muffins".