the chap and a capp
cappuccino, Cotter Barber
Before I placed my jovial cappuccino on the textured floor, and jovial because my barista gave off the vibes of a happy-go-lucky chap.#, I was standing on this here floor admiring the excavation of the old as now new.
Now, I don’t often use chap in my everyday vocabulary, it’s one of those words I find when reading the beatnik poets or literature from a different era, one where I dream of newsie caps, high waisted pants and British lit. Where this informal reference pertains to a boy or man, it now hoisted itself upon the man making my drink, a capp for comfort on an otherwise hot day where the temperature was rising and so was my need for a reprieve.
There was something about my barista, his dance with the steam wand, his eyes darting between his pour and I, as he lightly engaged me about of choice coffee and milk, that endeared me to stand here at this bar was coffee was making like an x to this spot.
His smile was like the one seen that precedes opening a well wrapped gift; the language of his body was limber and receptive like a devout pilates attendee who treats master of form like a religion and his aura was free, open counteracting the bar that was like an oval fence, bridling his talent to one cup and another and another.
I wondered if my cappuccino was a little
More than the standard of everything because of the one making it. I wonder if the superpower of niceness would prejudice my sips, steer my thoughts of its quality into one direction.
I thought about this, about what makes an experience great, an exchange great, a moment great? i hope that the spirit with which one makes – perceived and clearly felt – unchains itself within a chap, within all of us. because, what is better, than to be touched and freeze framed by the groove of happy-go-lucky?
“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river move in you, a joy,” said Rumi, the poet. The river was in the cup, the joy in the coffee.