Growth Santana

I tried two other cafes before ending up here, at the one closest to the hostel. The other two felt weird. I didn’t get far past the entrance to the Nirvana Cafe in lovely and quant town of Barnstable. And the Old Kings Cafe looked attractive on the outside but felt corporate and freezing on the inside.

I might low-key be talking about the last two men I dated for about five minutes each. Some background: I was trained to stay regardless by my parents interpretation of our non-denominal Christian beliefs. And as an actual nerd (I thrive in intellectualism) I trained myself to be deeply disciplined. So, I’ve brought genuine gravity and intention to a romance – to someone being in my personal space. I was never expecting it to end once it’s started, so the six, about five minutes each since last summer have been painful.

So, those cafes told me they weren’t for me, which registered to the level of action.

An older verision of me would have stopped at the lower-version of me saying, “oh, I’m wasting gas or “just accept it, you’re not going to find better or maybe this is as good as it’s gonna get”.

Alas. This place, just down the road – two blocks – from the hostel is perfect. Perfection.

It’s the kind of cafe I’d design and be proud to own and share with people. It’s strong theme is carried through the decor, and the signage and menu are on point. I’m sitting at high table that faces an intersection. The movement mirrors the rivers I’ve loved writing with – flowing as I am, a touch point just outside the window, right in front of my face. There’s a young man walking in haste, carrying a bouquet of flowers. Oh, it’s Mother Day. I should call my mom.

If I’d settled on those other possibilities, I’d have wasted time. Wasting time is painful.

Those other possibilities would have held me in a lower vibration. Those men – they didn’t find me controllable/submissive enough. One of them named it, and it was light.

Yesterday – I mostly nested and slept. I watched Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. I’d watched the two previous episodes here and there. The force is strong with me. This note from the woman who hired me is confirmation.

About nesting – I moved the furniture around in studio repeatedly, trying to find the right configuration, the right feeling. I settled on an iteration I felt good about and went to bed. At around 1am, I woke up and moved things some more, then fell back asleep. This morning I can say that things are feelings just right.

About resting – I slept for about 12 hours – 7pm to 7am. Wow. Typing that reminds me of the time I did that in grad school. I hit a wall after being in the habit of reading a book a day. Jesus. I forgot that it was that intense, and that reading was no joke… No wonder intensity feels familiar. I made a home in that energy, and I grew to love it. Yep. As I told the last five minutes, I accidentally fell in love with research and applied for Ph.D programs aftter I got my Masters Degree in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages — and I went “nowhere” but to the library; I spent five years there. Five years.

The professor’s life called to me for its capacity to grant intellectual freedom and practical flexibility, so I locked in, made it happen, and got tenure. The semesters are intense, but the summers are free. My first summer as a professor I was a manager off-Cape at the Winnetu on Martha’s Vineyard. The next several were spent with a partner who still works for the Cape Cod National Seashore (we moved between the Cape and homeowner life in Central and Western Mass), and this summer I’m a manager on the Mid-Cape.

I saved a draft of this blog, then took a walk down the still quiet main street. As I listened to Florence and the Machine’s, “Free,” I noticed someone walking behind me. Something about his energy made it easy to connect, walk on together, laugh, and consider the message he had just heard at church this morning. “It was something about friendship,” he said, “that friends help us carry grief.” We agreed that the buddy system is a way of life and that we would have had breakfast had I had not already scarfed down a not quite big enough (let’s be honest) plate of french toast from the cafe that I wrote the majority of this in. It was a surprising 10 minutes, and the perfect ending to this blog that has turned out to be about finding what feels resonate.