"Listening is suspending disbelief." (Rick Rubin, The Creative Act)
Though I didn’t know it then, the back door was like most. The cement was smooth and discolored by the thousands of bags of trash dragged, pushed, and willed outside—a dumpster to the right and a pile of cigarette butts to the left.
After swinging and slamming for over a decade, the metal door sounded like most metal doors. It was brown and heavy, at least for this prepubescent fellow. It creaked as I struggled to pull it open.
I moved through the dark and musty storeroom with shelves that were twenty feet high. Thinking back, that couldn’t have been true because there were no ladders, but everything seems bigger when you’re young. Things, people, and possibilities.
That day, I had a small section of tables. No doubt some law was being violated given my age, but it was the Caribbean, and this was a family business. The kitchen clanged, banged, and slid as eggs, toast, and hash browns made their way to the dining room. Perpetually hungry and encouraged by the French toast unceremoniously dropped on the stainless steel counter, I grabbed a piece of bacon and headed to my first table.
Still chewing and partially coughing as I worked to swallow, I arrived to find a mother, father, and young son. He was probably 12. I don’t know what the parents ordered, but I know what he ordered. “Coffee, please.” At 12. Coffee?! I wrote it on my little pad and weaved back to the kitchen in disbelief. My age, drinking coffee?
When I asked one of the old timers how and why a 12-year-old kid would be drinking coffee, they said, “They do that.”
I remember the use of the word “They.” Vividly. A distinct separation between us and them. I want to believe she was grabbing any old pronoun during a busy breakfast rush, but this burned into my conciseness. So much so that I’m sharing it with you thirty years later. That family was different than “us” in some way because of what they drank.
Where is that little boy now? Does he have kids? Do they drink coffee? I have a child the same age as that coffee-ordering kid in the booth that morning, and if he wants coffee…sure. It’s interesting how one word can make all the difference. I wonder if that wise old waiter had used the word “We” if I’d have remembered any of this?
Are we really that different? When we take the time to go below the surface, I doubt it. Sublties, yes. But we all have strengths and struggles, hopes and horrors, and dreams and doubts. WE are just people, peopling. WE have much to learn from each other if we take the time.
"To see each other clearly, you need to take turns sharing your perspective. When one is sharing their perspective, the other needs to do their best to listen selflessly." (Yung Pueblo, Lighter)
Take care,
Coffee, Please