Coffee and the Art of Everyday Living
In spring everything wakes up. Life is more buoyant and seems
easier. Morning coffee takes on a new sense of pleasure. Birds chirp while
coffee gurgles in the background as it brews, the children are still sleeping and you can hear the sweet silence of the house and remnants of the newspaper lie waiting for further exploration before being discarded. In the case of our town--Montclair--people are also mulling over something big during morning coffee: the election, which is being covered by the New York Times. This election will elect a new mayor, a council person from each ward and two at-large council people. It takes at least two cups of coffee (at least for me) to parse the three major tickets and the idea of business development to increase ratables versus the idea of evolving the tax code creatively to protect schools and the streetscapes while not unduly burdening taxpayers. Hard to figure it out, but easy to care a great deal in a place where civic pride is not a small matter.
Spring is also the time for a slew of cultural and artistic events.
Last week, I had the pleasure of attending a fashion show given by students at
Montclair State University. The students artfully created fashion ranging from
everyday off-the-rack dresses and business-casual outfits to haute couture. There were beautiful girls in beautiful dresses, but when one young
woman walked out in a head scarf with a tan-skin-colored chiffon blouse and a
high-waisted, floor-length Missoniesque skirt, everyone in the room stopped
breathing for a millisecond. She was literally that beautiful---and very
mysterious. I loved her dignity and her sense of herself as an everyday
fashionista. Were the situation different---I would have sought her out to get
a quote and learn more…but we were there as guests.
The schwag was really nice too, especially the iPad case and
the Marie Chavez bracelets that my daughter and I have not stopped wearing
since we got them. We also had the opportunity to hear the band “Sibvon Rose”
perform. They were amazing. There was a lot of creative energy swirling around
on that cool spring evening--and a lot of hot coffee being brewed and consumed.
There was a sense of creative adventure everywhere. We had walked to this event from our house and I was struck by
all of the random sculptures that I often ignore walking through campus. But
one stuck with me. Students had
assembled an ephemeral sculpture out of Starbucks cardboard cup holders. They
were assembled on top of a crate flat, built up and out and bent randomly into
various configurations. There were flecks of dirt everywhere. I looked at this
work of art and thought of all of the hands that had held cups full of (mainly
) coffee and all of the hands that had assembled that sculpture. Another
example of coffee driving creativity, unity and art for the sake of art.
Enjoy your morning coffee and your afternoon coffee and, if possible, enjoy
every single day of spring 2012! Also, please remember to VOTE!!!
Comments
Just nominated you for a Versatile Award and Beautiful Blogger!
At your favorite coffee house, when selecting a stirrer, do you ever pick the one that is sticking up, or do you select one that is hidden in the pack?