The Plan: The Next Three Years-ish

Several people have asked me what I’ve been up to lately. This is what is floating through my head. Starting in the Spring of 2012 through fall 2014.

THE ROADTRIP

I’m sitting cross-legged in Olympia, WA’s Sylvester Park next to a portable camping grill. There’s a kettle on, bubbling just before boil, a floor table that you might find in a Montessori classroom with several coffee cups on display; above them are corresponding V60 ceramic coffee drippers.

Someone with a gentle face approaches, curious. Curious people are the most interesting, and, he, being particularly precocious, sits down and asks me what I’m doing. I ask him how he takes his coffee. I grind the corresponding beans with a ceramic hand grinder, place the grounds in the filter and pour him a delicious cup of coffee. Then I answer him.

I’m sharing.

I turn my Tascam DR-07 audio recorder on and ask him a question. “Are you able to tell me about your most satisfying cup of coffee?” He smiles. He’s either able to, or not. But he’s forced to think about it and reply with something. And so begins a conversation. A conversation that I record; a unique story. In my mind it’s part StoryCorps, part Post Secret, part This American Life.

There’s more. I have an aeropress, a chemex pot, vacuum brewer, and a French press. There’s also a cooler with a specialty, slow brewed iced coffee. You pick your poison, sit in the grass with me and allow me to record a story you might have. Or answer a question.

I’ve either bought beans from local roasters, or I’ve had enough time to use a hot air popcorn popper to roast some green coffee beans a few days earlier. I tell the friends I meet about this, how easy it is for them to make really good cups of coffee through their own varied means. I don’t charge for the cups, but I accept tips to cover expenses.

I, of course, become a social media whore collecting email addresses, start a facebook fan page, post youtube videos, blog about my adventures. I tweet. I travel around the country, exploring the parts that I want to explore while sharing something that I love with other people. I get to engage with strangers, weirdos, normal types.

I don’t have a proscribed idea of end result, but have a general idea of what I’m doing. I’m looking for something that I’ve been looking for my whole life. Passion. People to share my passions with and people to share their passions with me. Experience. Change and movement are constant in this world, and I’ve found that embracing the current takes you to unforgettable places. Direction. Were I to define the ideas that drive my pursuits in life, I would say that “storytelling,” “community” and “love” fill my head the most. I want these to always be a part of what “I am doing with my life.”

THE FANTASY—starring Mario Bucca and Jeff Hawkinson

What I have described is the base layer of a cake. Were I to add a layer, it would include one of my best friends in the world, Mario Bucca. Since 2002 when I graduated high school, we’ve moved away from each other geographically while individually pursuing different modes of creativity. Mario went to film school, I studied creative writing. Our studies and close friendship bred many a late-night phone conversation about ways to make our creativity collide. So far it hasn’t happened.

Mario would bring his camera and we would add a visual component to the road trip. Where would it lead? Somewhere interesting, no doubt. It would also partially satiate our thirst for shared world travel and domination. We would forma storytelling community of love. And it would be awesome.

THE FUTURE

Fall of 2012 I’m in graduate school at NAU for their interdisciplinary Sustainable Communities program. I’m trying to duct tape a program together that allows me to study the formation of the modern coffee house, its history as a vehicle for community involvement and change. I’m also researching the concepts of “pay-it-forward” and “flash mobs.”

While hitting the books on these subjects, I would ideally create a partnership with a local coffeeshop institution (like Macy’s) in order to explore ways to strengthen community bonds and promote more meaningful, interesting and creative modes community volunteerism. I think my ideal job would be to run a non-profit (with AmeriCorps volunteers) that operated out of a coffeeshop/co-op/community center/art space. Just one of the many fantasies that float around my brain. And when I say “run,” I really mean something like having a title with the word “creative” in it.

Comments on my 3 year plan are encouraged.

Love #1: Between the ache and the indian burn.

The ache beats the way a tooth throbs. A hard thing hurting like a soft thing. Like a magical, bluesy toe-tapping beat it urges him on. It doesn’t make sense.

Neither does running through a Murakami forest, but he runs anyway. Mostly for love, but in the absence he pretends to chase unicorns. And untether magical conches, their deep moan coming from everywhere.

Everyone he knows tells him that there aren’t seashells in the sepia-toned forest, aren’t fish with flashlights, no stars. Just tangles and plops of green. Fear-flavored odors and shit.

If he were sitting with her in a room he’d tell her that the color brown is comprised of orange and black, and orange is full of light, and stars are light, and, so, there are stars in the forest. She’d look away; she’s in love with someone else.

He’d run through the forest collecting starfish, building cob firepits for wild olive and chloroplast pizza, recording bird chants and mating calls—if he knew it would make her love him. But she believes in time and waiting for him would be time wasted not-loving. He knows this.

The forest is warm now, smells of sulfur, of egg. He can feel it—the egginess— emerging from his pores like wild bullfrogs after a rain storm. This new feeling is different from the ache. It’s like the first slow, tightening Indian burn you got as a child. You thought you could take it, but it got way too hot, way too fast.

She’s gone for now. The forest burns invisibly. It’s just a clearing—not even an open field—with nothing beyond. The color of the ink sack of the cuttlefish without the idea of the cuttlefish. He can remember running, can remember grasping at imaginary, fascinating ideas of things out-of-context. The ideas of the feelings are still there, the compulsion gone.

He remembers a mountain in the middle of the night. A full moon illuminating the route between LA and the Valley of the Sun. The space between the cushions of the couch. The feeling of being there before. The beer. The wine. Falling out of the shower, off the bed, down the steps. The feeling of tottering imperfection. True matters of consequence.

Customer Service.

I come home with coffee stains on my t-shirt, evidence of a stimulant-induced day. I've moved from Phoenix to Tucson to Chicago to South America to my parents house. And, now, to an artist's place in downtown Phoenix. I've spent a lot of time in coffee shops, drinking, dreaming. Spent a lot of time longing for things that everyone does. Creative fulfillment, love, happiness.

I serve espresso, lattes with rosettas, conversation to men in transition, families looking for a temporary repreive--from home, from the hustle, from the responsibility of nourishment. I happily do this. I work overtime, clean the floor with a dirty rag, measure beans out in grams, wash porselain bowls. Wash porcelain bowls.

I'm appreciated. Work hard. I listen to customers' needs. I care about taste, believe that atmosphere has something to do with taste. I'll serve you a macchiato or a caramel macchiato with the same enthusiasm. I'll flirt with you, pull your chain, and I'll serve you.

I moved to Chicago to pursue a job in public service not quite understanding that's what I was doing. Served in an underperforming school, built robot night lights out of pvc pipe and duct tape, and roamed the corn fields with amazing kids at Camp of Dreams. That whole time I was serving the greater good by spending my time with kids that could benefit from sharing a space with me. Many people would say that I was sacrificing --my time, more money elsewhere, my patience.

I'm not doing the same thing now, but I'm unable to look at myself in the mirror if I don't think that part of what I am doing is 'serving others.' When I took my current job in the service industry, I used my experience in the public service realm as 'experience.' And while I would have taken the job regardless of the owner's reasons for opening this cafe/wine bar, she mentioned a couple of magical phrases.

This place is on a notoriously dead corner of the city. If someone mentioned the intersection, you'd say, "there's nothing there." But the owner told me that she wanted to be the domino in the community. She wanted to be a catalyst. She wanted to make money, but more than anything, she wanted to carve a place in the community to call her own--and more importantly--for others' to call their own. She roped me in with that statement, and if this was a place that I wouldn't want to call my own, I wouldn't work as hard as I do, wouldn't try as hard as I try, to connect with each person that comes in.

I recharge when I am alone. I stole that phrase from the last girl I dated. But in all of the jobs that I have ever had, I have had to be extroverted. I've had to open myself to address the needs of the client--whether it be a child, an educator, non-profit, customer. In opening myself, I've let a lot of people in. To varying degrees, but in, nonetheless. It's rewarding.

But when you have so many people inside, it's overwhelming. Like a forest. When you're amongst so many similarly living things, it's difficult to differentiate. When you make your way out and you're alone, there's nothing distracting you from pulling out the ones that you remember. I recharge when I'm alone.

Having moved downtown, I find myself alone a lot lately. And that’s the best way to reevaluate that which you hold dear. Stay tuned for things that I hold dear.

Audio Apology #1: Dear Burning Bush

I am addicted to listening to people tell their secrets. I love listening to people read letters. Post Secret. Found Magazine. 25 Things About My Sexuality. These regularly fill my time when surfing the web. Add my time spent listening to Public Radio, and you could call my a voyeur.

This is me jumping into the game. I recorded an audio letter. It's an admission of something I did as a kid that hardly anyone knows about. It was hard to decide to post this, but I feel it's probably relevant to someone. I hope you enjoy it--or at least can recognize aspects of it in your own childhood.

Dear Burning Bush by Asvariouslyaspossible

I also wrote it out. You can read it below.

The Search For Stories.

I recently attended a volunteer meeting for RadioPhoenix. Among other things, I've been looking for an artistic and creative outlet since I've moved back to Arizona. I took a rewarding screenwriting course that challenged me, but it's ended; summer is coming. Summer in Arizona has always been an artistically stagnant time of year for me. The heat melts my brain, and the dripping wax interferes with the intellectual gearwork. I'm determined not to let this summer be like other Phoenix summers.

At the end of the Radio Phoenix meeting, I talked with gentleman who manages the schedule. Told him my ideas about producing a spot about Phoenix Stories. In the vein of RadioLab, This American Life, To The Best of Our Knowledge. He told me to go for it. So I intend to.

This blog is intended as an outlet for my creative ideas. Storylines that I am toying around with. I've learned that I do best when others are reading my thoughts and ideas; so I invite you all in. I welcome ideas, honest critique, and encouragement.