Because I know each crevice and mishap of the caulking in the shower, because I know the places where mold tends to grow inside the cabinets. Because I was the one who tried for a solid two hours to find a stud and was proud to mount the television on the wall by myself to surprise you upon getting home, because I have kneed down and scrubbed the grout in the tiles with hard bristles and Comet and strict attention. This is why I am saddened to leave this home you and I have created. To remember those long weekend afternoons when I impressed you by making homemade bread, by roasting meat in the oven and presenting a meal with fixings and love and an earnest heart.
Those days we lingered before a marathon of useless shows, just because we could. And that we would drink wine in the early afternoon and that we could sit on the porch when we cared to, or not if we didn't.
It is because that bedroom houses our secrets, because the bathroom hosted early morning routines: the powder I use after a shower, our preferred brand of toothpaste, that metal comb you bought to brush through the dog's ears.
Tonight I take a sponge across our countertops for the final time. I clean out the refrigerator and I remember the food we have prepared together, the soups we have stored in the freezer.
I reach out and touch the memories. Old, new, difficult, breathless, excited, happy, lethargic, content. The walls whisper so many stories about me and you.
I close the door and make my way to the elevator for the last time. I am walking away from the home where we have made a good life to share these past 3 1/2 years. And I realize you and I and our dog are those who make this good life. And yet, I find myself breathing heavily as the metal elevator door closes for my final trip down.
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Pour
And then there were two.
Two of us who have skirted and strewn our lives across the pages of this book with hopes to write a compelling story about a coffeehouse that was more than just that; the existence of a thing that stationed itself squarely in the middle of people who found themselves revisiting our shop. To write words like community and quality and fostering into our walls as if with invisible ink that sets and dries into the plaster and easily shows itself to the children who enter.
Who want to hear your story. About the dog running away on the beach, your friends who got engaged and married in a month, your Polish neighbor who crossed the border holding a bright bouquet of balloons. Between the coffee grinds and the heavy layers of foamed milk, the broken plumbing and the advertising meetings, there is excitement.
Excitement about what it means to live life in the South during this time with the people around us, drinking caffeine.
Fold yourself around the idea that you are accepted. You are loved in a distinct way that involves your morning and afternoon drinks of choice. Without offering much what we can offer to you is to take care of that small divinity to which you treat yourself. We can make it as best we know how and give it as if a warm hug that says, "You matter". Because with or without us, you do.
In the earliest morning hours before even the sun itself rises we are wrapping pastries and measuring scoops. This is because we like to consider that fact that on some days we are honored enough to help you remember your value, if even through the smallest means of water over beans.
Two of us who have skirted and strewn our lives across the pages of this book with hopes to write a compelling story about a coffeehouse that was more than just that; the existence of a thing that stationed itself squarely in the middle of people who found themselves revisiting our shop. To write words like community and quality and fostering into our walls as if with invisible ink that sets and dries into the plaster and easily shows itself to the children who enter.
Who want to hear your story. About the dog running away on the beach, your friends who got engaged and married in a month, your Polish neighbor who crossed the border holding a bright bouquet of balloons. Between the coffee grinds and the heavy layers of foamed milk, the broken plumbing and the advertising meetings, there is excitement.
Excitement about what it means to live life in the South during this time with the people around us, drinking caffeine.
Fold yourself around the idea that you are accepted. You are loved in a distinct way that involves your morning and afternoon drinks of choice. Without offering much what we can offer to you is to take care of that small divinity to which you treat yourself. We can make it as best we know how and give it as if a warm hug that says, "You matter". Because with or without us, you do.
In the earliest morning hours before even the sun itself rises we are wrapping pastries and measuring scoops. This is because we like to consider that fact that on some days we are honored enough to help you remember your value, if even through the smallest means of water over beans.
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