Thankscoffee

For the most part I’ve given up coffee in favor of herbal tea after watching my morning cup of coffee each day turn into an entire pot. Though last Friday, with nothing to do after spending an entire afternoon watching college football, I hopped on my bike and headed to the Starbucks on Lakeshore Avenue.

I found an empty table next to the window to nurse a cup of coffee and write. The sun was setting, the sky a dark, but luminescent shade of gray. I had forgotten to throw my iPod in my backpack, so I was forced to listen to the Christmas music that played on the stereo, which turned out to be fairly pleasant.

Several people typed away on their laptops, others sank into the upholstered chairs and pored over a newspaper, two tables played chess while several others gathered around to watch and converse.

I sat and thought, this is what Oakland needs. This was the Oakland I fell in love with when I moved here in August. The lake, China Town, the temperate weather, proximity to San Francisco, the amusing hipsters with their bikes, tattoos and mustaches, the Catholic church with a gospel choir. There is a lot to love.

But, then after a little while, it’s easier to look at all of Oakland’s shortcomings. The homeless are everywhere and the entire downtown is practically boarded up. You wonder how it happened, and maybe that’s not important, but the question of how things will ever change is important. It’s never going to be easy, but especially with the current economy, the task of turning things around seems especially daunting.

I took another sip of coffee, the caffeine really kicking in, and thought about the prior week and my first Thanksgiving away from my family. Near dinner-time with several other JV’s I was admittedly a bit depressed, but after a couple heaping plates of turkey and all the fixings and some pie and a couple of beers I felt a lot better. It was, as people who annoy the heck out of me often say, “excessive in typical American fashion.” Exactly the way it should be, in my opinion.

I think that it’s often hard for people to find that balance between excess and guilt and somewhere in that equation is also sanity. There are always going to be people in need, but at a certain point you have to take time out for yourself without feeling bad about it. This is especially true in an area like Oakland where poverty pervades. Perhaps, that’s the kind of moderate thinking that will never change the world, but I really enjoy green bean casserole and pumpkin pie, I guess...

On my second cup of coffee, thoroughly buzzed, I thought about The Awaken Café in Oakland. The café’s first meaning is obviously a place to wake up, and the second meaning is the cultural and economic awakening that Oakland needs. I wondered if maybe I should’ve been down there, by the homeless men and boarded up store-fronts, but instead I was down near the hills on Lakeshore Avenue across from Trader Joe’s and down from The Gap.

Too much caffeine--my own thoughts were irritating me.

A couple next to me was talking loudly about Obama and Africa and God and an old hippie was sitting Indian-style with his Birkenstocks off. The sky was now completely black and I decided it was time to start biking home. I took a final sip, wiped up the table and headed for the exit as one last thought pin-balled through my head, the lesson I keep coming back to time and time again this year--acceptance.

Great afternoon. Great cup of coffee. Deep breath in. Deep breath out.