Colleges, Coffee Shops, and Birthdays

First, let me just say... HAPPY BIRTHDAY CORA!!! You mean so much to me. I can't even begin to imagine what the last three years would have been like without you. I just found this quote: "A friend knows the song in my heart and sings it to me when my memory fails." (Donna Roberts) So have a happy, hopeful, heartful birthday!

I'm sitting in a cafe at Oberlin College right now. I'm visiting a couple of nearby colleges with my parents this weekend, just to check them out. I love college campuses - they're so energetic. Everybody has something to do, somewhere to go, something they're thinking about. And so many people carry around coffee cups! I visited a poetry class this morning with my mom, and probably almost half the class brought in a cup of some hot beverage. When I see coffee cups or mugs, I feel comforted and busy and satisfied. Sometimes I want to get a cup of hot tea at a coffee shop just so I can walk around carrying that little cup of warmth and hope in my hands.

I also love coffee shops. Pretty much for the same reason. The busy-ness yet contentedness of every person inside, the way the drink you order seems to define you somehow, and the concentration that is inherent in these places. The ability to just sit for hours and work on something, without any complaints. And the way each person has their own space, their own world within their mug or their laptop or their book, or simply the way they eye everything around them in the shop.

I wrote up a little narrative of our arrival in Oberlin last night before I went to bed (unfortunately I can't get Internet connection in the house we're staying in, so I couldn't post it last night). I'll post it separately so as to avoid yet another case of long-post-syndrome. Well, to avoid it as well as I can. I'll write daily accounts of our time here, and post as often as possible.