As my co-workers and I sat in the interminably long cab ride from the airport to our hotel, I was eerily reminded of Cape Town, South Africa.  Maybe because it’s warm in January, and the last time I was warm in January I was in Africa.  Maybe it was the palm trees, and the blue sky and the green vegetation.  A lot of it also has to do with the architecture of the buildings.  So many gates and bars and fencing — just like South Africa.

I got a little lost in my head — as one who is seated in the front seat of a cab who can hear none of the conversation behind her might be expected to do.

I’d love to really ruminate on it, because I found it very odd. But today is a little jam-packed and I have to figure out where the pool for this place is (not for fun reasons — it’s because we’re all meeting there).  On the plus side, my room is beautiful and has a little balcony, so that’s very nice.  On the down side, I am so hungry I could probably eat my left arm, and the snacks provided are a million dollars each (that is obviously an exaggeration — but not a huge exaggeration).  Even the water is $14.  Craziness.  Thankfully I brought my handy dandy hot spot, since they also charge you (in addition to the insane room rate) for access to WiFi.

So, that’s my first impression of West Hollywood.  Yup.

Sometimes, the simplest things can completely change even the smallest moments.

I can’t pretend — I’m completely exhausted and I’ve finally hit a day when coming and blogging feels a little bit like a chore.  But I had such a clear idea earlier today about what I wanted to say that I don’t want to do it complete injustice.

I work every day in center city Philadelphia.  I’m very used to the normal jostling and interactions on the street.  There’s an underlying discontent — a mistrust that runs like a current, an energy that one becomes accustomed to after awhile.  As though everyone is out to get everyone else.  Listen, I love Philly –in the strange way that I also feel as though it’s home — but I won’t deny that it’s not unusual for strangers to feel as though Philly is unfriendly and cold.

I think there are many reasons for that, and I won’t get too philosophical about it. But I think it makes sense, and it’s truly, authentically Philadelphia.

But … every once in awhile you meet someone’s eye, and they return your gaze with a huge and genuine smile.

And today I thought — a smile makes all the difference.

It changes a person’s whole face.  It warms up an entire room.  It buzzes — filling a space with energy.  It sort of made my day when a woman smiled at me in the hallway this afternoon.  A real, true, huge, honest smile.

So often, flat and empty stares greet you and it makes you feel even more alone than you felt before.  A smile — a smile changes all that.  All of a sudden you are two people, connected for the briefest of moments.  Finding the happy and sharing it.

I cannot lie.

In many ways, I am a very simple person.  I have very clear likes and dislikes.

I very much like soy chai lattes from Starbucks.  They are the way I prefer to begin my day, they are a calming tonic when the stress feels like it’s too much, they are a warmth when life feels lonely and cold.  I know it sounds ridiculous and overly romantic, but I seriously love.those.drinks.

My amazing husband has been encouraging me for years to quit my habit.  Sometimes he’s supportive in a positive way (have as many as you want … I know you love them, have them!…– this strategy worked when we first met and I was failing at quitting smoking; he told me it was okay for me to smoke, and I quit cold turkey and have never gone back –) and sometimes he is supportive in a realistic way (babe, you will feel better if you don’t drink so much sugar and you know that …. think of how much money we will save in a week, let alone a year! — which he knows very much appeals to me because I love saving money –). And it intermittently works.  Last year I didn’t have Starbucks for nearly seven months.  But I inevitably went back.  I always do. I justify it by saying that of all the vices in the world, of all the things someone with an addictive personality could get hooked on, soy chai lattes really aren’t that bad.

But they kinda are.  And I kinda know it.

And — there again — I don’t really care.  (Something i should remember when I’m being wildly judge-y about people with drug problems).  

But here’s my side of the story — my dark, hidden love of what I call happiness in a cup.  Life can be hard.  It can beat you down, it can tell you you’re worthless, you’re stupid, you’re failing.  And it’s easy to get caught up in that — the bad stuff seems to come with much more regularity than the good stuff ~ or, more to the point, it’s easier to focus on the hardships than find the blessings.

So to have something — a simple something, an easy to find something, a relatively inexpensive something, a legal and undamaging something — that without fail (unless made incorrectly) brings unbridled joy to your life — even if it’s only for the few moments it takes you to drink it –why would you ever banish that thing?

Anyway, after waking up halfway through the night due to sheer cold (I was shaking under four blankets and wearing sweatpants and a sweatshirt) I decided I was going to begin this day with some Chai.  And it was wonderful.  I arrived at my local shop, all the baristas (minus the angry one who always pretends not to know me) greeted me by name, knew my drink, asked how my weekend was going.  It was such a friendly way to begin the day.  That’s the other priceless thing — the “Cheers” feeling for lack of a more descriptive word.  The idea that everyone knows your name.  And on lonely days — days when my husby is far away, and the hours stretch out before me — it feels nice to have someone ask me how I’m doing (even if it’s just a superficial, coffee shop type of ask).

So — there it is.  My love of Starbucks in black and white.  Happy Sunday world!  I hope yours started with some happiness in a cup, as well.

xoxo

“Marilla, have you ever been in the depths of despair?” 

“No.  I have not. To despair is to turn your back on God.” 

**********************

When I was younger, i was a book-worm.  I loved little more than I loved getting lost in a book.  There could be many roots to this love — moving often, being very shy, not being very good at friendship (another blog post all-together) — but the bottom line is, I loved to read as a child, and I love to read to this day.  I just have a lot less time to do it.

Some of my favorite books were Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables series.  I probably read them around the same time they were first serialized (and played ad nauseam, it seemed) on PBS.  I loved that first mini-series, when Anne fell in the well and twisted her ankle, when she and Diana got drunk on what they thought was Raspberry Cordial, when Matthew bought Anne her first dress with puffed sleeves ….  Magical.  Reading those books made me want to be as smart as Anne, as clever and funny and creative and charming and beautiful.  And in those books, it was cool to be smart.  Which — at the time I was in middle school and high school — it was decidedly not.  

I got to thinking about the books — and the miniseries — today as I felt as though I hit complete rock bottom.  And I could hear Megan Follows’ voice as Anne Shirley, saying very sincerely to Marilla — have you ever been in the depths of despair?  And Colleen Dewhurst’s bald practicality coming right back at Anne’s heartfelt, romanticized plea — to despair is to turn your back on God.

Today –if ever I’d been close to the depths of despair — well, today was it.  Our day began early, as John had an international flight to catch to Cancun for work — and then it just kept spiraling downward (icy road conditions, bumper to bumper traffic as I approached the city, hit after hit in my in-box about various business traumas whose deadline — if I hadn’t already missed it — was today).  I met my boss for lunch and the man who has always been a beacon of positivity looked like a defeated beast.  Tired, slightly distracted, forlorn.  I said — slightly in jest, but slightly in truth — I felt as though December lulled us all into a false sense of well-being, and January hit us with a vengeance.  He ruefully agreed.

I can’t repeat things I’ve already said — even though so many things repeat themselves in life with no consideration for those affected.  I miss my husband when he is away on business.  I hate when he’s in other countries, because I am at the mercy of his schedule and both of us being on Skype at the same time.  It is beyond lonely and with the immense stress at work, the tears overtake me at odd moments, and Lucy looks up at me half fearfully and half broken-heartedly.  She wants to help, but she doesn’t know how and she looks for her daddy — as I do — and he isn’t there.

Work scares me every day — it scares me that it will overwhelm me, that it will become too much for me, that at some point I will be revealed as a fraud.  I am blessed with incredible co-workers, an amazing staff at both restaurants, and so many people we work with on a regular basis — but sometimes I think I’m just making it all up as I go along.  And maybe we all do that to some extent.  I know in my heart that I know this industry, I know this business in my bones — I love it and I hate it but I know it, and I have instincts for it.  I think I was built for it in a way I am not built for anything else.  But every day I have to learn something new, I have to solve an unsolvable riddle, fit the pieces of an infinity-piece puzzle together … somehow.  And it can be incredibly overwhelming, insurmountable.  Humbling.

And usually, when all that becomes almost unbearable, I get to come home, to my warm, snuggly apartment, to my excitable, beautiful puppy and to the calm, supportive and reassuring presence of my husband.  When that is taken away from me, I feel lost, adrift at sea in a storm … without my anchor and my strength.  Without the person who makes me find the humor, who sees the light when I can only see the dark.  We’re a good pair — I live at the extremes and he resides in the middle and together we cover the whole spectrum.  But when he’s not here to pull me back from the abyss, I struggle. Some days I struggle at lot, and other days I don’t struggle at all.  But the possibly is always there — that without him, I’ll tip right over the edge.

And then the tears begin again.

When Anne first arrives at Green Gables, it is revealed that Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert had asked for a boy — someone to help Matthew with the chores, to help run the farm as he grew older.  But they agree to keep Anne for a bit — to see how things go.  Anne has been shuffled from homes as – for lack of a better word — an au pair, to orphanages.  She hasn’t had a family of her own.  Marilla takes her to her room on that first night, and tells her to say her prayers.  Anne — who is not one for silence — begins rhapsodizing about prayer, and the manner in which one prays.  She expresses to Marilla that she has never understood why prayer happens kneeling next to a bed.  In a somewhat skeptical attempt to humor her, Marilla asks Anne how she would pray.

With wide-eyed wonder, Anne tells Marilla she would go out into a wide field, and open her arms to a sky filled with brilliant stars, and just talk to God.

I like that idea.  I’ve always thought it was beautiful.  Highly romantic, but so beautiful and pure and true.

I’d like to walk into a huge field, open my arms, lift my face to the sky, and ask God to please have mercy on me, to know how grateful I am for all my blessings, and to please, give me strength when I am sure I have run out.