Remembering to see
Three little words and something about Starbucks
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‘Beauty’ shot
This month, August, is all about seeing, and there is so much to see in this seemingly mundane photo of a shipping container and pylons. Notice the contrasts: the different shades of green; the texture of foliage, bark dust, gravel and bricks. The shadows, deep and mysterious. As always, I’m drawn to images that contrast orange or tangerine with green or teal. There’s something ineffable here, a soulfulness, a whole that’s greater than the sum of its parts.
Triad of the week:
Unpacking three words: Simplicity Rigor Awakening
Simplicity
Simplicity is complex. I didn’t know this until I tried writing about it.
“’Tis a Gift to be Simple” is the old Shaker hymn. ’Tis an even bigger gift to know what simplicity entails.
It is not simple.
I’ve always found the magazine Real Simple to be oxymoronic—seeking simplicity amid display ads. I see by their website that Real Simple is 22 years old, that 151 million* read it each year, and that it affiliates with Amazon, with many items about amazing finds online.
*Not clear what 151 million signifies. Sets of eyes? Subscribers? Hits on various articles? Wish I had 151 million subscribers. Word of mouth is fulfilling, but it’s slow way to build a following.
Well. I thought simplicity was a plain muslin dress. Clean lines, no clutter. I’m not sure I could find that on Amazon.
Simplicity
Simple thought, An arc of intuition. The painter chooses a single hue Excited by its purity. Paints a line on canvas, Color against plain. Pure line, pure color. Simple. The musician knows a single tone Distills the music of the Universe. Spheres collide soundfully, While stars sing in harmony. Amid this profundity, the tone. Single. Simple. The cook takes a single eggplant And makes a complex dish Umami, oil, spices, Meat and cheese and béchamel. Moussaka is an argument that Simplicity can be overrated.
Rigor
Why did I choose this word? Not the right question. As always, the words choose me. I think “three words” and three words appear. Sometimes I don’t even want to write about them.
Rigor is related to discipline, to truth, to simplicity. It is the quality that allows us to be simple.
True to itself, rigor shoots straight to the center of the target, the unfletched (unfeathered) arrow that hits the mark regardless.
Don’t think too hard about rigor. It’s enough to be of clear mind and set purpose. Be rigorous without tending toward rigid. Keep a little flexibility.
Rigor
Shorn of pretension Naked of thought. The foot on the pathway Strong, sturdy, steady. Straight. No deviation, Bereft of yearning. When the axe splits green wood, Water spits out, And the moist, tender core Smells of resin and life.
Awakening
This is a bold, rigorous word. So much concept in just nine letters.
Callow seekers see awakening as an end, like “enlightenment.” As something to be gained, a reward for the successful seeker.
Yet awakening isn’t a goal, it’s a process. Bit by bit, corpuscle by corpuscle, the mind stretches, the spirit stretches—and a new world is birthed.
Before awakening
Sleep now, beloved. Behind your eyelids, Away in a dream, All the world awaits. Sleep now, child, Awaken as an adult Full of cares and concerns, Yet always, just a child. Sleep now, creator, Your dreams, Your stories, You needn’t seek. They come to you. Wake now, beloved. Wake now, child. Wake now, creator. The Universe is ready Spirit holds your hand, Whispering in its only language, Pure and sweet— Love, love, love.
Resolution for August
Remember, there is a resolution here at Becoming for each month of 2023. I’m in the process of dreaming up more for 2024.
But on to August’s resolution:
Remember to See
I visit the concept of seeing, of noticing, so often, it’s worth its own month.
When you are present in the moment, alive to everything around you, you notice details, images, connections, forms, patterns. The old you would walk past that red staircase to nowhere. The new you notices the contrast, the lines, the incongruity—I mean, why is it there?
This sign reads “Less mystery, More coffee” at Less and More Coffee on the Portland transit mall (1003 SW 5th). The mystery is deepened by the dappled shade.
Nature has a way of imitating art. Below are circles formed by tree limbs, two of them. Almost a third, too, at the bottom of the photo. And another! Top left.
A cloud looks like a giant smoke ring.
I took the photo below in Germany many years ago, but I only just now noticed that the buildings of the town, Dinkelsbühl, are reflected upside down in the water.
Pattern, synchronicity, rhythm, form—these things become apparent as we start to notice.
Clear you mind and open your eyes. Wonder is everywhere.
Mexican food
Robert’s friend Kristen has a great recipe for chilaquiles. Robert describes them as scrambled eggs with pieces of tortilla. “Oh,” I say, “like Mexican matzo brei!”
I didn’t grow up with Mexican food, not hardly. My little family was so not clued into culture in Minnesota that I never even had lutefisk or Swedish pancakes. Swedish meatballs, maybe.
But Mexican food? In the 50s? In Minnesota? Are you crazy? We didn’t even have avocados in the supermarket, much less jicama or strange tropical fruits like guavas, mangoes or papayas.
I never had any Mexican food until I moved to California in 1967. There, in the Central Valley, I tasted “Mexican” food that I thought was abominable. All of it was deep-fried, mostly burritos. Tacos were unmemorable, and refried beans sticky and unappealing.
The Berkeley revelation
When Mark Gardner, my first husband, and I were at Cal, my new father-in-law, Nelson, took us to dinner at a fine Mexican restaurant. I remember dragging my feet, thinking, oh boy, another deep-fried burrito. I went along to go along, you know?
But the food was exquisite. It open my eyes to the possibilities of Mexican cuisine. I did go through a bit of a backslide when I discovered that the herb that I thought ruined a dish was cilantro. I’m one of the people who thinks cilantro tastes like soap. Still, I am trying to train myself to like it.
The local angle
Mexican food is relatively rare in Portland (certainly as compared to most cities in California). There are often good restaurants in the suburbs, where more Latinos live. One of them Amelia’s Rustic Mexican Food, with two locations in Hillsboro, well worth the drive. Another, much missed, was La Bamba on SE Powell and Foster, now closed, a victim of Covid.
—Feel free to fill the comments section with your own recommendations.—
There are also some very good food carts, but I am not really situated to order and eat at one.
One of the new stops on my trap line of places to visit in Portland’s Hillsdale neighborhood is Verde Cocina, a local chain that serves superb food in a Mexican style, with fresh ingredients and tasty sauces like coconut poblano.
Meanwhile, back home, Kristen was cooking up chilaquiles for Robert. I don’t have her recipe; try allrecipes.com. I’m not about to copy over a recipe I haven’t tried, but this one looks intriguing. It’s got tomatillos and stuff.
The best books
In the summer of 2022, professors at Cal Berkeley published a list of books that they thought incoming freshmen would benefit from reading. .There are 19 books on the list, including Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead, which I read and liked.
Others impressed me: Wagnerism: Art and Politics in the Shadow of Music, by Alex Ross, is a heavy 784-page tome about the influence of the composer, and the post-Romantic movement in general. It’s one of those books that I started and thought was really great and plan on finishing. Someday.
Also, The Road to Wellville, by T. C. Boyle, a favorite author, and Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants, a big hit with the ladies of Rose Schnitzer Manor.
The one I picked
A slender volume, an easy read, was How Starbucks Changed My Life: A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else.
It’s written by Michael Gates Gill, the son of Brendan Gill, a longtime writer for The New Yorker magazine.
He grew up in a mansion, hobnobbing with celebrities like Ernest Hemingway, Mohammad Ali and Frank Sinatra. He had a sterling career at the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency, rising to the executive suite before he was fired in his mid-50s. It made corporate sense to divide his swollen salary among younger, cheaper talent.
Gill went through a divorce and lost a lot of resources (we assume. He doesn’t say). Consulting didn’t work out. He developed a brain tumor. He needed health insurance, and a job.
An offer out of nowhere
He happened to be hanging in his old neighborhood Starbucks on the Upper East Side of Manhattan during a job fair. Somebody asked him, more as a joke, whether he needed a job, and he surprised himself by saying yes. He was 63.
He ends up working not in that upscale neighborhood, but at 93rd and Broadway on the West Side, still upscale but not exactly 78th and Lexington, where he interviewed. Most of the other staff (“partners” in Starbucks-speak) don’t look like him, and not just because he’s four decades older.
He starts by cleaning restrooms, and works his way to the front counter. He also learns to socialize with and come to love the customers (“guests”).
Over time, he begins to understand that he had lived most of his life never thinking about or trying to understand the lives of people who weren’t just like him.
Opening up
I like how open Gill is about his prior attitudes, and his coming understanding that they were toxic.
He remembers an intern at his ad agency, a young woman of color, somebody he was supposed to mentor. He failed to do that because he didn’t see her as a person.
In one startling anecdote at the coffee shop, he turns away a homeless man who was wanting to use the bathroom. He is roundly reprimanded by his manager. Where do you think they’re going to go? she demands.
A lot of things come together to make Starbucks work for Gill. There is the organization, with its peculiar mix of corporate savvy and care for its partners and guests (although it’s getting a lot of grief just now for trying to keep unions out). His manager and mentor, a Black woman with a hardscrabble upbringing, is absolutely the influence he needs in his life.
And there is Gill himself, who, while working hard, is also willing to self-examine, to change, to become a better human.
Ends neatly tied
At the end of the book, Starbucks corporate turns up like a fairy barista to transfer Gill to a shop close to Bronxville, his neighborhood in Westchester County, allowing him to give up his punishing commute of an hour and a half each way.
Still, Gill’s endless praise of Starbucks the company wears thin. It may have been a lifeline for him, but I am certainly not the only one who dislikes the whole Starbucks vibe. It aims to be cozy and warm but often comes off as barren and rigid.
Same decor in every store; the same music; the same food. No one ever asks if you want a for-here cup (those imbibing on the premises invariably drink out of paper). According to Gill, even the placement of pastries in the case is dictated from on high. They come with a map showing where to put them.
My real hit against Starbucks, though, is that if you order a cortado, what you get is a short latte. Trust me, they are not the same.
How Starbucks Changed My Life is not available at the Multnomah County Library anymore. It was published in 2007. If you’re interested in reading the book, I’ll send you my copy. Just leave a comment.
If there is more than one comment, that could be jolly. We could pass the book among ourselves.
Check out
I’m looking forward to working more with August’s resolution, Remember to See. Coming up are trees that tell tales and an exploration of Henry David Thoreau’s vision of vision, that is, seeing.
Meanwhile, I haven’t prodded you about writing for a week or two. Do you work better with prompts? I can send you some.
One prompt you may consider is drawing a Tarot card every day and starting your free-writing exercise with an exploration of its imagery and meaning. It’s a good way to hone your intuition.
Subscription, anyone?
I continue to have subscribers opt to pay for Becoming, even though the content is free. Deep thanks to those who have signed up, and a reminder to all that writers like—and need—to be paid for their work.
Regardless, please enjoy what I write. If you’re not feeling it, let me know why. I may be writing for myself, in that my thoughts are my own and I don’t have an editor. But my deepest desire is to help my readers access their own feelings, to enrich their day.
Some of you have suggested topics for me to write about. I’m getting to those, and I welcome more.
Thank you for reading, dear ones.
Till next week.
—30—
I love the red ladder photo, and the reflection in the water glasses is amazing. The Starbucks book sounds like an interesting story!
In California and the Southwest, "Mexican" food isn't a foreign cuisine. It's just food. And throwing a bag of tortillas in your cart along with eggs, tomatoes, peppers, whatever ... peanut butter for pete's sake will become several different "simple" meals.