Saturday, September 3, 2016

The Grind



Good morning. As is the case with every post I have written on a weekend, I am sitting at Nina’s Coffee Café on the Corner of Selby and Western in St. Paul. I have cited this location frequently, but aside from this post on why I like coffee, I haven’t really elucidated why I like it here so much.

Many years ago, during my first attempt at recovery, I was a fan of the Caribou chain. Everywhere I went I could get my fix, and I ended up developing friendships with several employees at various locations. I wasn’t a stalker, so much as a caffeine aficionado. When I first got out of prison almost a year ago, I wasn’t in a position to be able to go out and do anything because of the restrictive nature of my intense supervision, and the complete lack of income in my pocket. I spent a few dollars at Caribou on occasion, but it wasn’t the same; I no longer knew anybody, and I wasn’t allowed to stick around to converse anyhow, not that I had the ability to talk to people yet.
This is my view every week. I get to pause and look at the people whenever I need a break.

On my birthday last year my wonderful mother gave me a gift certificate to a place called Nina’s, not too far away from where we lived. The first emotion that came to me was fear. Back then I was still institutionalized, and very fearful of new places and things. Simply holding the paper certificate in my hand made me anxious.  My fears were those of exposure and rejection.

Very quickly, Fear of exposure and fear of rejection work together to muzzle perfectly talkative people when they should be talking about themselves. They’re self-muzzled because they’re thinking, if people knew the real me, they’d for sure not want to be my (pick one) friend, lover, employer, etc. What that means is I have a very real fear of talking to people, asking people questions, because in turn they will ask me questions and I will be expected to answer them. Fuckers.

This place is where those fears started to fade away. It’s the first place I felt normal. I don’t mean to offend anybody in particular with this statement, but, when I’m here, I know I’m not the most fucked up person at any given time, or maybe I am. It’s a flurry of characters that surrounds me at all moments that makes me comfortable enough to know people aren’t watching or judging me. At this very moment, a small child is crawling up the bench toward me and potentially over the backrest. She pauses, looks at me and smiles, then climbs back down and goes back to her mother. Now that she’s gone, my view of a lady with a creepy faceless doll is unobstructed.


The tides of people move in and out, and only a few of us remain the same. We are the rocks among the grains of sand. The employees behind the counter working in perfect harmony, never wasting a precious move, as should be the case.

 I still have fears left to deal with. I’ve been coming here regularly on weekends for over six months now, and I don’t even know the names of the people that serve me coffee and pastries. Am I afraid that they will then ask my name? I don’t think so, I nearly exclusively get that answer correct. Why can’t they just wear nametags? That would take all the fun out of it, I suppose. How is a simple question of identification so hard for me to deal with? What happens when I know somebody’s name, or when they learn mine?

It’s the relentless clamor that makes me feel relaxed. Is it conceivable that it’s because when I first started writing, I was in such a deafening environment? Because I was not given the choice to “turn down the volume” behind the cold steel bars, is it imaginable that that is the setting I seek out here? Am I saying that Nina’s Coffee Café reminds me of prison? No. But I have found that I do my best writing here, because my mind is somehow more focused with relentless commotion.

All week long at work, I think of the upcoming weekend. My favorite part is early mornings, sitting in my favorite spot in my favorite coffee shop, writing about my life. And slowly, but ever so surely, I’m beginning to get over my fears, and branch out into the world that scared me only a year ago. And that is why I like it here.


And Counting

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