Cortados, Dog Walkers and Time To Think

I have been spending a lot of time in cafes in these days since arriving in Buenos Aires. When you spend a lot of time in a cafe you do a number of things that are all good things. First, you drink coffee. Whether or not you like coffee or think it is good for you, the ritual of coffee is a good one. The smell of coffee, the smells of coffeehouses, the chill of the outside contrasted by the burn of that first sip of coffee or tea, the sounds of quiet conversation or pages turning or keys being tapped. Then there is the waiting. Coffee is a game of patience. Waiting for coffee to cool off to that perfect temperature is one of the great pleasures of my life. I like it because I really dig that perfect temperature, but I also like that it takes time. You have time to reflect, time to think about things or to think about nothing. Our America is so busy and full of action, it is an almost therapeutic few minutes. Minutes that could be introspective, or could be filled with substantive discourse with another human being. So this is the second good thing that you do in a cafe, you take time and reflect. You watch people, you read something, you write something, you relax. (Yeah, I know, coffee doesn´t really make you relax.) While partaking of a cafe, as a result of the free time you suddenly have, you may realize that you are able to observe the world in a different capacity, and while you are doing this, you may realize that you are noticing different things than you do in your everyday bustle. Here it is things like...the famous dog walkers of Buenos Aires! These are people who take to the narrow streets with anywhere between eight and fifteen dogs, all on relatively short leashes, and proceed to negociate sidewalks and crosswalks with all manner of passersby. It is a bit like having a bunch of helium balloons on short strings bobbing about, except upside-down. This morning I watched a guy with about thirteen dogs walking right down the middle of Avenida Defensa. He had a line of cars and busses stretched out a block behind him, and not one of them was honking. They just let him do what he had to do and then went about thier day. In the same cafe, I watched friends greeting each other with kisses. Not exactly like ´les bises´ in France where they kiss each other´s cheeks back and forth. But just one solid kiss on each others cheek. This is not just a man-woman thing. The guys kiss each other too. (Look out Todd, you little homophobe you...) The reason for this has been explained to me to be the result of the importance that is placed on friendship here. Being, on the whole, a relatively poor place, it is a thing that has much more value than money could have and in the sense of ´parea´, time spent with friends is the most important time that could be spent in a day or week or year. I also noticed the way that the young help the old. This isn´t the best example because the waitress/proprietress of the cafe that I frequent is no spring chicken. At probably seventy five years of age she moves like cooling lava and has a voice as gravelly as already cold lava. This morning a much older woman with apparently no voice at all creaked in the door and the proprietress went straight to her to assist her to a table. It was a moving thing to watch them make the slow journey across the salle to a little single table next to the wall. (I really like aged people and I would have helped too but I knew I would probably only hurt one or both of these ladies.) La vieja sat the other one down and I figured that they were probably old acquaintences but as I eavesdropped on the exchange that followed, I realized that they had in fact just met. This, to me, seemed interesting and heartening, I was glad for it. The last thing I will meander on about today is the cumulative phenomenon that I am experiencing in these periods of time...these periods of cafe time where I can actually take the time to get my mind around a lot of the ideas that I have had over the past while, but never had time to really get into. It is truly a good thing to have the time to process things in one´s life. I have talked a lot to many people in the recent past about the things that frustrate them in thier American lives. Stress and pressure, too much to do, not enough money, the list goes on. Most of the American psyche functions at high speed with a focus on having options (freedom) and then fitting as much into a day or hour or minute as possible. (´Time is money.´ I have been thinking lately how silly it is that we use the word spend when we talk about passing time. You spend your time as you spend your money, the major parallel being that obstensibly there is never quite enough of it.) Time management. We think about being efficient, using our time wisely. Even the most simple-minded of us is, these days, a multi-tasker. So it seems, in the beginning, that taking time and ´spending´ it doing nothing but sitting, maybe thinking, maybe reflecting, maybe just being empty for a few minutes, is a waste of time. I have never thought this way, but I, as you all know well, get just as busy and caught up in the American life as the next guy or gal. I think about it all now, with so much free time afforded to me, and I realize that the best thing we can do for our individual ´trips´, is to take time out in whatever way we can...just to maintain our sanity. Sitting down to eat with people, actually chewing the food before gulping it down, actually cooking your own dinner of real grown-in-the-ground ingredients, sitting in a park, sitting on your porch, zoning out playing an instrument, actually listening closely to the things that your friends are saying, walking somewhere, listening to music, waiting for coffee to cool...there are many opportunities to meditate. But yet we skip them in order to get just a little more done. I always promise myself that when I get back to the US from some other place where the poeple are more relaxed (and much healthier), I will take it easier than last time. Do less running around, do less working, less multi-tasking. But do I ever? No. Or I do, but for only about as long as it takes for Bamfer to balance his checkbook. (Not long.) So I guess that is why, as I get older, as I have more perspective on the experiences that I have, I realize how much this all really means......And those are a couple of the things that I like about spending time in a cafe! Long version of a short story no?!? Ha ha! But if you took the time to read this then I know you are my friend and I look forward to the next time we can sit down and have coffee together. Or Chai, I know how many of you non-coffee people are into the chai. It doesn´t really matter what the drink is, I guess we just need to chill the fuck out in general...watch the dog walkers and cheek kissers, and give the employees of our brains a cigarette break. (Cigarettes are bad.) Until next time, I bid this place adieu.