ANATOMY OF THE LOCAL

"The crowd is his element,

as the air is that of birds and water of fishes. His passion and his profession are to become one flesh with the crowd. For the perfect flâneur, for the passionate spectator, it is an immense joy to set up house in the heart of the multitude, amid the ebb and flow of movement, in the midst of the fugitive and the infinite. To be away from home and yet to feel oneself everywhere at home; to see the world, to be at the center of the world, and yet to remain hidden from the world—impartial natures which the tongue can but clumsily define. The spectator is a prince who everywhere rejoices in his incognito..." - Charles Baudelaire

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I do that! I set up house in the heart of the multitude...say...in a coffee house. In Asheville, High 5 Coffee Bar makes the best espresso and its variations, so here I am. As it happens, the folks at Waking Life also make the best espresso in Asheville. And, while there may be others, High 5 is my local. 



I've spent years cultivating this particular baristocracy. I tip reliably, don't ogle (much), and make no unreasonable demands. And, I order the same thing every time. They like that. What could be better than a low maintenance regular?  

In return, I get serious coffee, permission to plug in and a new soundtrack each day. Where else can you hear Yma Sumac, Bela Fleck and the Texas Playboys. Coffee houses have been exclusively my third places since March 16th, 1977. The warm spot that is neither home nor office. I believe that I need these places, for sanctuary from obligation. I don't need to serve or be in charge or even to collaborate. (Not that there is anything wrong with collaboration. Also, I'll walk the dog later.)

Within this sanctuary I learn contemporary culture and wander in my head...in both cases, just to see what's there. Truly, I don't really know until I write it down (or speak it out loud.) Further, if I were less of a flaneur I might work this third place and be community. Propinquity alone qualifies me; I am so often there. But I have a different agenda now, my requirements are few and they are all available at High 5.

I want to be welcome, to be greeted warmly...but with poise. On occasion, I arrive grim (what with life and all...) but even when I am buoyant there should be some slight distance. A blend of both casual and formal, it is a professional exchange. It feels more solid to be a client then a customer.

My part of the bargain, other than the money, is to keep the confessional to this "page" and simply be courteous. B knows something about dealing with the public, day after day. Each one thinks that their transaction is the only one of importance and seems to need a fully detailed backstory, each and every time. It isn't and doesn't. And it takes up time and steals focus both of which are needed to do the job. I try not be that person.

It is always a pleasure to watch as they make a cappuccino. Good baristas have subtle, personal flourishes. They don't talk when they work.  B (again a reliable source) has pointed out the particular beauty of the careful execution of almost any task. Mindfully making coffee to be making coffee. Style, focus, craft and service. 

My current drink is a three shot cappuccino, with a side shot and a seltzer chaser. I toss the shot whole and stop everything to taste and inhale. I can't put names on the layers of taste (hazelnut, blackberry, wood, wet leather) but I do experience them in this holy moment. A quick sip of seltzer isolates that first experience. Then I take a sip of the cap and settle down to my spot (hidden at the center of the world.)

I scan the room, anyone to greet? Anyone with whom to seek or avoid eye contact? Interesting clothing, adornment, faces and bodies? New tats, new hair, new objects dangling...the baristas are a fashion strikeforce: the men groom their heads and curate their arms. These women (nature's best) often change totally from one day to the next. Grunge, the little black number, vintage circle skirts, altered clothing, leggings ringed with bold stripes, ear feathers, dirndls, mountain sports ready, fresh from the farm, bare face and stage makeup. 

Finishing the scan I start to write where I left off. Here, in my local I don't play solitaire. There is an academic theory that suggests we have a fear of being seen as purposeless and therefore, in whatever we do, we radiate intent. Whatever. Maybe. In the midst of this hubbub I write with greater focus than anywhere else. I have been waiting a long time to do this, to unreel my life as I speak my passion for food and hospitality. The right kind of third place allows me to write as if it matters.

                                           

Here is my theory: I've told you that I come from a seagoing family. At sea the constant hum of the diesel and the creaking sounds of the ship passing through waves are both comfort. It means that we are making headway. When the noise stops, we are in trouble. In the same way, the hubbub of new and familiar voices, the music drone, the china and metal clink and even the torture of the coffee grinder are comforting sounds. We have headway, I can relax and listen to my own voice.

Engrish,com

El Patron of High 5, Jay Weatherly, worked his way through school pulling shots as folk met and posed questions, designed, schemed, argued, dissolved and reformed (remember: thesis-antithesis-synthesis.)  "Third places "host the regular, voluntary, informal, and happily anticipated gatherings of individuals beyond the realms of home and work." Rae Oldenburg, in The Great Good Place. Jay needed a career and so he made a good place to build community.  Also there is excellent coffee,

Another sip and I can slip beneath my waves and check the tectonics of everything. 

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Cheers,

Chris

A Birthday Message of Myself

It is a question of experiencing everything.

"Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day."

― Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

no photoshopping

I am 68 today, roughly twice as old as I expected ever to be. Flirting with the full spectrum of disaster has filled my life with excitement and beauty with a normal portion of sadness. (I used to complain about boredom until a therapist explained that boredom is simply the inability to pay attention...she didn't actually say, "You dope," but I heard it.) There have been near-death experiences but no significant run ins with the law. It is a wonder to have made it this far. Forgive me but it is hard not to reflect and I'd rather not do it alone. Let me see what regrets I've accumulated.

I don't believe that I have physically harmed anyone, not even in Vietnam. There is that. (The only time I ever fired my rifle was to win a bet from the platoon sergeant that it would actually fire and not explode in my hands [I never cleaned it.] I might have fired it to save my life but I never had to. Five dollars in scrip and no place to spend it.)

What I did for love?

My 20's were a reckless, nearly feckless decade about which the less said the better. Large sections of it are unavailable as memory. The war was an excuse but the truth is that I wasn't ready to move on until I broke 30.

When I finally woke (read...detoxed) , I had cleaned up and began to look around for my place and time. My goals were modest and quiet and I began to address myself with sympathetic affection as if I were Rilke's young poet. So I listened more and became less angry and ashamed.  I began to be available to whatever there was for me.

Eight or nine months after my last drink, I took modern dance classes* in pursuit of a woman (that's her, spinning by the piano.) We had virtually nothing in common so I tried her world. Trying new things? Living the question as I wore a Sherwood Forest green leotard. By day I worked as a free lance writer/editor which is hardly even possible without scotch. There was still no real life passion (just passing fancies.) But it was certainly entertaining and I remember it all.



Then came Nora and a couple of years later, Emily. It's a commonplace, but no less true, that children wake corners of your heart that you never knew were there. I stopped regretting that I had no particular passion, no mission. Within the moment (being there then) I had a father's love for his daughters and for a while didn't really need more. I am more in love with them now.

By the time I hit 40 I was fully integrated. A house in Chevy Chase (on Tennyson St.); Emily and Nora were at Lafayette Elementary with the children of movers (if not shakers.) I wore a suit and tie (with an eye-patch) and commuted during the week to southeast DC and my job as a mid-level bureaucrat. For a while, there was a second house in the Shenandoah valley. Except for the lack of affairs (I am nothing if not loyal) my life became Cheeverish and Updikey: full of envy, guilt and circles with which you're in this week...and next week you are out, Auf Wiedersehen.



I was unhappy in my government job, I was competent but didn't fit. Socially there was pressure and competition to be the most informed and clever and (truthfully, I thrived at parties [with facile repartee-thanks Dad]) I was pretending that it wasn't tense and exhausting. I did excel at the bon mot. I am still awed by the astonishing phrase, and bow before superior Scrabble Players.

Then I began to cook and feed people. There were a few false starts like being sidetracked by what Nora Ephron called "competitive cooking" or the struggle to find more and more obscure cuisines and ingredients. But, since I was sober and could think clearly it became apparent that feeding people somehow stacked up my Chi or aligned me with the Meridians.

This discovery and its implications didn't really take shape until I turned 45. It was an entirely new life and I started to become myself. I passed through the hubris of mastering the art of baking, believing that the purity and quality of my bread made me important. But my daughters and many, many good friends have permitted my idiosyncrasies until they were no longer necessary. There is a saw about people like me: an egomaniac with an inferiority complex.

Thanks, Mr. Tatarka

Perhaps not everyone would be convinced of my better nature. Still, my impulse to feed you, to see that your needs are being met, has become my salvation. It is my way of life and my method of self rule: the moment I wonder what you would like to eat, I cease being your enemy. It keeps me out of trouble.

I had a friend who was a holocaust survivor. He was a happy and zestful man but he knew that any one of us is capable of evil. He taught that it is our responsibility to guard against this possibility. I have always secretly been afraid of my potential to damage and I see Arnost's point.





I am 68 today.

I cook to gather my friends and give them pleasure and nourishment, to see to their needs and enjoy their company, to create community. It is working for me, I trust myself to be a good man in ways that I could never have at 18, 28, 38... And I have others who are glad for me. Why, just last night they surprised me with balloons and a truly warm family meal. Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, kale salad (it is Asheville) and carrot cake. You see, we all cook for each other even though I am the actual obsessive. Balloons at 68, how about that?

Cheers,

Chris


*I achieved the apex of my dance career as an off-stage voice.