corporate exchange to intimate connections

I work in a drive through. Don’t let the fact that it is for Startbucks fool you, I am indeed working in a drive through. And while that sweet headset song of beeping, and humming and amplified big truck exostpipe often remind of times when my parents were actually proud of me, I am typically distracted by the looming question of whether I am under or overqualified for this position. All that to say, I have actually stumbled across a few absolutely beautiful things while working at Starbucks…well beautiful and interesting…mostly terrifying.

It was a closing shift when she came through the drive through. She ordered a drink, I took her money and asked how she was. It was at this point that her eyes turned into two tiny pools and her face to a muddy red earth color. She had just found out that her mother was in the hospices. Apparently this is the place where people go to die. She never fully cried in front of me but I knew that if I were to touch her or anything she’s probably just melt away. So I gave a few free drink cards and listened for a while.

She asked me if I was a believer in Jesus Christ. Rather then waxing poetic about how the church had failed me and how most nights I’d rather fantasize about being cradled in the arms of a Mos Def- Simon Pegg- John Linnell- Andy Richter superhuman then praying to my ceiling I replied, “uhh I’m working on it,” which wasn’t a lie. I then mentioned that I attended Biola to take some of the heat off. She looked relieved but I was still looking over my shoulder. She could probably sense my anxiety, then most likely mistook it for the Devil, because at that point she asked me my name.

“Jamie,” I smiled.
“Well Jamie, I’ll be praying for you. And never let Him out of your life, always keep Him in your life.”
“Well mam’ I don’t think I could get him out even if I wanted too,” after she found no humor in this I figured that this woman had never danced with Anne Lamott’s Jesus Cat.

That was the second time in a week someone had said they’d pray for me. When this happens I usually feel insulted at first, then bad. Bad for a lot of reasons the main being the whole...not knowing what the hell I believe in any longer. Better yet, knowing that I think I believe in God but having absolutely no reasons or support or logical standing for thinking that (If it smells like faith...). Feeling bad is also the result of becoming so apathetic toward something I once loved so much. Apathy is insulting. Hatred is terrible, but at least it’s a feeling. A plaguing feeling such as love...or intense like. But apathy...apathy is rolling over, apathy is a text message, it’s a quiet slap to the jaw, masked and made okay by books entitled, “He’s Just Not That In To You.”

When I got to work the next week the woman had left a gift for me. A tiny Max Lucado book, some Easter chocolate, and a card assuring me that she was praying for me and reminding me to let Him IN this Easter. Again, at this point I should be a little insulted. But I’m not. She was loosing her mother so she did what many women would have done, she became a mother. This woman clearly was the type who was always taking care of others and happened to run into me the night where the one person she learned all that from was dying. A few free drink cards and a listening ear seemed to lend this woman the distraction she needed from the horrific evening ahead of her. A night spent with her dying mother. She may have interpreted our meeting as an act of God. As the Divine taking from her one life but letting her be the salvation source for another. If she needs all that to get through burring her mother, then she can most certainly have it.

This all sounds very cold of me, I know. Having someone offer something to you like a free coffee is one thing, but prayer is another. This woman really believes in God. She actually believes that her mother will die and then go to an actual heaven. This baffles me, for my last words will not sound anything like peace-filled tasty wisdom tarts, but rather something along the lines of, “oh shit, what if the Jews were right!*” In the case of the woman in the drive through, she was so earnest and so sad about her mother there was no way I could reject her prayers. And because the other person who said he’d pray for me is such an important and respected figure in my life I couldn’t possibly say no. All I can do is shut up and receive.

So here I am, taking on these unknown wishes that people have for me. Letting them stack their intimate god speak in my annoyed and anxious arms like a mother loading up their college student to go back to school with pie, and ham, and tea, and frozen cheese.

I guess I’ll take whatever I can get.

*I’m quoting from somewhere.

Now when my boss got word of this she wanted me to write a little something about my interaction for corporate. The following is...The Corporation Version

It was a closing shift when she came through the drive through. She ordered a mocha, I took her money and asked how she was. It was at this point that her eyes turned into two tiny pools and her face to a muddy red earth color.

“Not well,” she whispered and thanked me for asking. At this, I let out a sort of cough/sigh and thanked her for answering honestly. She had just found out that her mother was in the hospices and would most likely die that night. She never fully cried in front of me but I knew that if I were to act on my initial impulse of leaping through the drive through onto her lap for an embrace, she’s probably just melt away (and I’d most likely receive a restraining order…or a pink slip).

She had already paid for her drink so I offered her a free drink card. She mentioned how she was going to give it to one of the two nurses taking care of her mother. With this, we agreed that the other nurse should probably get one too. Then I put another free drink card in her hand and told her to stop giving them away but rather treat and take care of herself.

We chatted a bit more and then she drove away. Our point of convergence had ended. She driving off, Strabucks goods in-tow, to see the woman who brought her into this world out of it; and me off to sanitize blender tops. That evening in the drive through may have been a lot of things. But everything that comes with personal agendas, sickening sensitivities, and fumbly humanness seems to be the very ‘stuff’ that bubbles under the foundation of The Starbucks Corporation. It is this breath of humanity that gives us the ability to turn corporate exchange into intimate connections.

Fat cats and bedtime prayers

Up until about a month ago I prayed every night before I went to sleep. Toward the end, the prayers turned to lemons, then super balls that just bounced around my room and then finally, to rocks that weren’t flat or smooth enough to skip. Tired of watching my prayers sink, I stopped praying. This was more difficult then one would think. Every night I get myself ready to say something to the big brick wall in the sky but then have to bite my lip and tell myself, “no, stop that. Tonight we’re exercising our right NOT to pray.”

Last night, cold and tired of being sick I curled up into the fetal position on my bed and prayed again. At first I prayed a behemoth of a prayer, why not it was my first night off the wagon, I prayed that God would reach down from heaven with his magic Midas finger and zap the shit out of Alexander Hamilton (that’s what I named my ailment…see previous blog). Then I told God that it would be fine if I woke up tomorrow and A.H. was still hanging around, but He should give me the patience to wait it out a few more days and the knowledge that Alex will go away. What a mature prayer. Typically my conversations with the divine consist of me bitching about something, not expecting (or getting) any sort of response, and then declaring myself a lazy atheist. This morning I woke up nervous about the results of my prayer. I had dreams about Alex being gone and me calling up everyone I know in a fit of revival saying, “hallelujah! I prayed and Alexander Hamilton is gone! God actually listened to me…therefore HE IS real! hallelujah! I believe! it’s all a Jesus soaked landscape again!” But rather then rushing off to get a tattoo of a Celtic knot trinity I pulled the blankets up to my chin and prayed for a second time.

“God…hey…look if Alexander is still around…I don’t care. Just give me peace about it. Please. Thanks.” I laid there a while longer before I realized that for the first time in three years I was acting like a Christian. At this I panicked and attempted to force a sex dream. I finally kicked off my covers and went to check on my tiny miracle. Alexander Hamilton was there, dry and still white with last nights medicine. I sighed and rubbed my clavicle with my fingertips then rested my palm over my chest like a scout. I couldn’t feel my heart beat, but I knew it was in there and I knew it wasn’t beating at God with it’s usual confusion and contempt. It was just beating, and I will get up…I will pay my parking ticket, I will get myself a smoothie, I will read a little, I will sulk around my studio until I make something, I will have good conversations, my cat will continue to be flea-ridden, and my heart will still be beating.

taking baths and eating salads

Taking baths and eating salads used to be two of my favorite activities. The salad thing was weird because I would have never considered anything green, outside a Hybrid, a luxury. I was mainly a burrito gal but then the salads begin to call to me. The Persian, the mix greens, and oh…the great Caesar. Baths too where a treat. Going back to Monterey always allowed for several things: free food and laundry, mom and pop, beers at The Crown, and a big ass bath tub. Many women like to use bath tub time as…um…well their special alone time…but bath tub time is warm and relaxing the last thing I’d want to do is start the laborious processes of masturbation. I would have never thought of taking a bath in my own apartment if it weren’t for Julianne doing it first. The tubs of Toka apartments are nothing like the Monterey Bay baths, not to mention our own bathtub had turned into a kind of bomb shelter for Kenobi. A retreat for when she’s been caught in mommy Jamie’s bedroom, or scaling our double TV tower, or crapped on a curtain.

The past two weeks I have been sick. First anxiety brings back an ol’ ailment that I don’t particulary enjoy talking about but I did name Alexander Hamilton. Second came the flu. Alexander retreated for a while but then returned bringing with it…(sorry readers) The Curse. I’m just laying this all out for back story. Because of these various aliments I was forced to eat only salad and take countless sea salt baths. The result of which has been me laying around for 14 days pooping out tiny jungles. Today I cracked. I had Chinese food about two hours ago and of course now I am starving again.

I found myself in the tub again this afternoon, but I had quite literally gone insane at this point. Pissed off and actually tired of being naked I plopped my absurd whiteness into the salty water. Somehow I had brought the copy of Traveling Mercies Eleanor had given me into the bathroom. I cannot remember if I brought it in to read in the tub or if it was another one of my efforts to counter act the mindless bullshit that typically litters our magazine rack. That was harsh, Cosmo can actually be a good read especially if one is as curious or sexually suppressed as most Biola alumnae. But I have been known to slip in a feminist magazine or some O’Connor short stories if I see some of the same tight, white, faces hangin’ around the ol’ zine rack.

Eleanor had given me the book long ago and I loved and hated her for it because I always knew the book was too good for me. It sat by my bed for some time before today when in a fit of crazed frustration and a bit of confusion I picked it up and read the first part. I read it until the drain sucked most of the water away. That didn’t matter much for the water had gone cold and Ms. Lamott had proven herself a friend. Reading books on Christianity holds the same weight with me as jogging. Perhaps I should do it, maybe it will help me feel better about my current situation…but probably not and what kind of music do you listen to when you’re jogging or reading Christian books anyway? But I could trust someone who was saved with a “fuck it” rather then a “hallelujah”. Anne proved herself to me with her writing, then with her stories, she made me her friend and by the end of the first part of this book I was naked in a cold bath in tears. I’m not sure why I cried. Perhaps I was sad for her, perhaps still frustrated over Alexander Hamilton and being sick, or maybe Anne reopened a dusty place in my mind that allowed the rest of me to be brave again…in other words, to hope. Maybe.