I was talking to a young person today, just out of school, and in what I know is becoming a recurring theme felt even older than the use of the expression "young person" seems to indicate.
And somehow, hours after our conversation, which was about her plans for the immediate future--that first big plunge--I was walking from the living room into the kitchen and it was eighteen years ago, and I was twenty-one, in Amsterdam, at a little round table in the sunny window of a cafe with my friend Dana, with whom I was traveling that summer: Eurail pass, backpacks, the whole shebang.
We had paper in front of us, or a journal opened up to a blank page--these were the days of journals with sketches and photographs, menus and meaningful receipts--and we were designing our future bookstore. It was going to have a cafe in it, of course, but a much better cafe than the one we were sitting in, with homemade pastries and excellent coffee, which I at the time did not drink. Coffee in general, that is: neither good nor bad. But I was still young enough to think it was glamorous, and vaguely literary, and not just what you needed to get you to noon.
At that point, although Dana had certainly worked more than I had in every capacity, neither one of us had worked in a real bookstore, or a cafe, and although we both loved to read and write more than anything--it was one of the many underpinnings of our friendship--I can't really remember if we were serious about this idea, this bookstore/cafe, or if we knew at the time it was just wheels spinning, idle, pleasant daydreaming in a sunny, foreign, yet strangely universal cafe.
I guess what I am wondering is if I was naive then, or am jaded now. I'd like to be able to approach my work, however, with that combination of starry-eyed limitless planning and determination (We will really do this, someday. We will.). I'd like to feel young enough that the bookstore/cafe could seem like a viable retirement option way on down the road, and old enough to know what I want in the moment and to be able to work for it.
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Living in the minute with a focus on what you are doing should be a priority. But regardless of your age, one of the ways to get through some of the challenges inherent in “the moment” is a healthy dose of “starry-eyed-planning.” My dream is a tiny restaurant serving homemade soups and inventive sandwiches compiled of the freshest ingredients, served on baked-on-the premises bread. For dessert there will be pie, assembled with fresh picked seasonal fruits and from-scratch crusts. Perhaps there would be an offering of moist bread pudding—blueberry in the summer, apple in the fall, and a decadent chocolate in the winter. Oh, and since this will be my retirement job, the place is only open for breakfast and lunch. The location is all picked out…but my restaurant management skills are nonexistent. I’m a lot closer to retirement then you, but as far away from this fantasy as I was at eighteen. There is nothing like the comfort of dreaming a bit though.
By the way, the coffee will come from fresh ground beans, so when I open my restaurant, bring your book; stay as long as you’d like.
I want to go to both Amy's bookstore and Liza's restaurant. I AM retired and so could spend as much time as I want in each. I have to admit to the same daydream of a cozy restaurant with soups, sandwiches and pies, with the added touch of packing them up in brown paper lunch bags for people to pick up on their way to work--they'd have this great lunch in the office fridge to eat at their desks. there would even be PBJ sandwiches on the menu as well as meatloaf sandwiches as the ultimate comfort foods. Alas, I too have no restaurant management skills. But thanks for awakening that daydream--i will use it to drift off to sleep. And, Amy, thanks for the vivid description of Annika's walking. Your blog is a wonderful way for us to keep track of your children's milestones.
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