Not Just the Coffee

Being in a coffeeshop like Starbucks is not just about having good coffee (not that I'm promoting their catch line). Experience is expensive and so here am I, having opted to be somewhere else but my bedroom. Old, familiar places have a way of haunting you. They remind you so much of moments you'd rather forget. They also make you feel as if life is nothing but a routine - a home-school-home kinda thing which life shouldn't be about. 

 And so you come here, paying for coffee that is 10 times more expensive than the regular one you get every day. Once you have settled in the perfect spot, you feel you have rented a haven for some purpose you deem necessary for you at the moment. In my case - to contemplate. 

 Coffee has a way of keeping you awake and when you are alone like me right now, coffee becomes a good friend - one who is always around, does not leave you unheard and hanging. It doesn't have a heart but it listens. It just listens. You can even customize it to suit your taste bud, to send pleasure signals to your brain. Coffee does not give advice. Instead, it helps you do what you got to do. In my case again - to contemplate.

 To contemplate on things I thought I had mastered, I had given others advice on them - things I thought I had always known, I could recite it to anyone. I thought I had learned how to guard my heart well..

 Have you ever said to yourself, "Here I go again?"

 Here I go again. 

 Have you ever wanted to just turn back time and play things differently?

 Is there such thing as a time machine?

 The lady just stared at my musing. That is fine. This is my place for now. I will muse to my heart's content.

 The people outside all look struggling to get a ride home. Sometimes it is hard to get home and the way home can be expensive. Often times, it takes a very long ride. Good thing, in my case, I only have to walk home tonight. The music in the background is a little upbeat. Coffeeshops shouldn't put on music in the air. Everyone, specially coffeeshop customers is entitled to his or her own music.

The coffeeshop crew are talking. I wonder about their story, and what they have to pay for to go home. I hate saying this because it reminds me of someone - someone I'd rather not talk about. 

 I'll have my last few gulps of this coffee and I look at my watch. Latte, my friend will soon be gone and I will eventually have to go and leave this place I have rented - stop musing and walk home.

-JCR (April 4, 2011)