To dare to live alone is the rarest courage; since there are many who had rather meet their bitterest enemy in the field, than their own hearts in their closet. --Charles Caleb Colton
Pray that your loneliness may spur you into finding something to live for, great enough to die for. --Dag Hammarskjold
I was left with an interesting choice last night: Is it more lame to spend Saturday night completely alone or studying for Microbiology? After checking my email five times in two hours and reading every blog I care to follow... twice, I decided the lesser evil was a homework session at a late night cafe. Hopefully, that would take my mind off the suffocating weight of loneliness I felt pressing down on my chest and ringing in my ears.
Of course, it was already 9:00pm and late night study sessions become more difficult when a person is trying their hardest to be bike-only. While I would normally choose my destination based off the atmosphere of the cafe, my preference has changed to close proximity and on this particular occasion, the hours. A bit of research, a quick look at Google maps, and 20 minutes later, I find myself locking my bike to a rack at Zoka's in Green Lake. Saturday night might still be salvageable, I thought as I peered past glass at vegan chocolate chip cookies.
I ordered a iced green tea and a vegan cookie and found a table in the corner surrounded by windows. While the wind had picked up and clouds scattered the twilit sky, the air still carried the warmth and mugginess of a full Seattle summer day. Wait, Seattle summer days terminate in clear crispness rather than warm mugginess. Tonight felt charged, like a Midwestern night of lightning and humidity. Strange things were in the air and looming outside like bats or owls. Branches pushed each other back and forth in the wind. The trees swayed and waved, begging me to take notice of their frantic caution. A Gothic night peered at me through the black panes of the window and I felt fragile, pale, beautiful and on the verge of something grotesque. I opened my messenger bag, pulled out my book, and flipped to page 41. "'- tear up the planks! - here, here! - it is the beating of his hideous heart!'" No, wait, that wasn't quite right. I wouldn't be sitting around a campfire reading the complete works of Edgar Allan Poe. "Microscopy and Cell Structure." Unfortunately, that was more like it. I tried to convince my embittered imagination that microbes can carry their weight in Gothic elements (if only on a microscopic level), but it just sat in the corner, shunned and pouting.
I finished my tea, cookie, and very little of the reading I hoped to get done before closing down the cafe. In defense of my lack of study progress, Zoka's closed an hour earlier than I was expecting and had the best taste in music I have found since leaving Portland. I sat pondering the mechanisms of Gram stains to Beruit, Yann Tiersen, Death Cab for Cutie and the Decemberists. How could I help but be lost in memories when the kitchen staff so deliberately stole playlists from my iPod? Two thumbs up for Zoka's atmosphere and music choice, an unexpected surprise given my hours/proximity criteria. I unlocked my bike and began mentally preparing myself for my uphill ride at 11:30 at night.
I started my ride home, only to realize that I was flying for the second time that Saturday. The first time I flew was at Magnuson Park on Lake Washington. The sun was scorching the earth below and convinced me it was the perfect time for a swim. I paddled out past the shore and filled my lungs with air while I floated on my back. The shore moved to the side and my vision filled with sky. With my head dipped back and my ears covered with water, the cheerful play of the children on the beach and the chopping splash of the waves on the shore muffled to a near silence. They sounded so far away. I concentrated on the birds flying and the clouds scattered across blue. The waves swelled me close to the sky before pulling my limp body back to the earth. I accepted the bobbing motion and let myself soar with the dipping and climbing of the birds' flight above me. Oh, to fly on the waves on an unsuspecting Saturday, in silence and warmth with the birds at play. I felt a pang of loneliness at the experience of solitary near-bliss. I was flying alone, with the birds. Lord Jesus Christ, son of God. I breathed in. Have mercy on me, a sinner. I breathed out. I swelled toward the sky. Lord Jesus Christ, son of God. I breathed in. I fell toward the earth, pleading, have mercy on me, a sinner. I breathed out.
Riding a bike through city suburbs at night is also very close to flying. The streets are deserted of cars and pedestrians. The white lines blur orange in 10-ft sections of street light illumination. I turn a corner and plunge down a hill in darkness, the warm night air filling me up and raising my arms toward the sky. The stars are so close. I can touch them. They tickle my fingertips with their twinkling. My sweatshirt hood flaps with speed. My bicycle tail light quickly blinks red. Dimly lit bars exude the muffled sounds of billiards. Thud clink clink. Badly chosen pick-up lines are delivered on the rims of pink and blue neon martini glasses. Poetry, poetry! The air is alive and I fly on the back on the night, let loose and tickled by the stars. Tonight carries a charge, the hairs on my arm stand up straight.
A quick flash pulls my attention over Green Lake shortly before I hear the rumble and crash of thunder. A near perfect Saturday made nearly better by an unsuspecting lightning storm! I turn a detour into Green Lake park and start riding along the trail in darkness and silence. One couple sits cloistered on a park bench, lost in each others' arms. A group of friends laugh and joke when I zip past, surprised and relieved I hadn't hit their party. Another couple with a dog walks hand in hand in lease. Flash Crack Rumble. The small dog jumps and urinates before looking distrustingly at a sky suddenly turned evil. Despite the late hour, the warmth and the beauty of the night lure me to a bench by the lake that looks across at the storm.
I sit on a bench by the lake in the dark, watching the raw energy completely overpower the electric lights below. I breath in the ozone and feel my arm hairs prickle, caressed by the delicate night rather than the gentle strokes of a loved one's fingertips. Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, I feel well up from my heart, have mercy on me, a sinner. The prayer completes itself and continues on with every breath I take in and push out. The rhythm is only slightly disturbed and distracted by a sudden intake of breath at a particularly marvelous lightning bolt streaking across the sky. Rather than pinned under a rock of heavy loneliness, my soul is suspended on waves, bobbing up and down. My chest feels light and dizzy like a ride on a bicycle in the night. My ears ring with cracks of thunder and gushes of wind rather than a silent apartment on a Saturday night. Lord Jesus Christ, son of God. Lord Jesus Christ, son of God. I might be able to do this single thing, after all.
Have mercy on me, a sinner and forgive me of my doubt.
No my friend, darkness is not everywhere, for here and there I find faces illuminated from within; paper lanterns among the dark trees. --Carole Borges
My climbing friend recently posted a contest on her blog, asking her readers to describe their most romantic rock climbing or outdoor experience. You can find her original blog here: RockClimberGirl
I wrote the following in response to her inquiry:
I love outdoor sports and activities of every kind. I’m heterosexual. I’m single. With a profile such as this and an outdoor guy/girl ratio of 4:1, it would be safe to assume there would be some moments of romancing in my outdoor career. Like the time my Fabio-esque mountaineering partner snuck away wine and cheese to be presented on summit. Or the under-the-stars, by-the-creek, away-from-civilization back massage. Or perhaps the time I sprained my ankle and was carried out of the wilderness by a bulging-muscle, bare-chested prince charming while my wispy, almost see through, lingerie hiking dress struggled to stay on my oiled body. I could write a book on the ways I would like to be romanced on the trail, either advising climbing guys on how to make their female climbing friends long term partners, or at least creating the newest and most tantalizing penny novel for Walmart shelves around America. Unfortunately, the attempts at romancing I have experienced have been awkward at best, if not more than a little creepy.
My creepiest experience took place about a year ago. I took a road trip to the deserts of Utah with a friends-only hiking partner. First lesson learned, if you are not into a guy, don’t take a 10 day road/backpacking trip with him. The trip was awkward from the time we left Washington. I picked up on the attention and tried my hardest to send unspoken messages that I was not interested. Unfortunately, one’s energy gets a little worn down after 10 hours in the car. Under the cold and frosted car windows somewhere near Twin Falls, Idaho, I awoke to gentle strokes of my friends-only partner brushing my hair from my face. I pretended to be asleep and quietly thanked Honda for the stick shift separation between the seats. We were to meet up with a group of my climbing friends at Indian Creek, UT followed by some backpacking in Canyonlands National Park. I couldn’t wait for a break from my partner and the safety of a group.
As chance would have it, we missed the rendezvous and ended up starting our backpacking trip early, at the suggestion of my partner, strangely enough just the two of us. We got into camp, made food, and I lay down as quickly as possible, not wanting to share the amazing desert night sky with someone that I was desperately trying to avoid. The second morning I woke up to more stroking of the hair and still pretended to be asleep. This had to stop. We set out on a day hike and I finally got enough nerve to explain that I was not interested in him as anything more than a climbing partner and would he please stop paying me so much physical affection. He understood, but also explained he was a very physical person and showed even his best of friends as much affection as he could get away with. Creepy, leave me alone. I yelled in my head, but knew I still had 8 days with this person. “Let’s keep it to a minimum. I don’t like to be touched.” Second lesson learned from this trip, always carry a one person tent. Inspired by this trip, I bought my little Black Diamond Oneshot as soon as I got home. The touching stopped, minus a few stiff hugs and inappropriate sexual comments. Needless to say, the end of the trip was the end of our hiking partnership.
Now that the immediate memories of my creepy experiences have past, I do remember the attempts at romancing made by partners of mutual interest. A couple summers ago I went on a 3 day backpacking trip with my boyfriend at the time. By the evening of day two, we had hiked 24 miles and were feeling pretty beat up. While I prepared the tent for our much needed night of rest, he started a fire by the river. I came looking for him and dinner, only to find a little bench in front of the fire with Cheesy Mac and a steamy cup of hot chocolate waiting for me. We sat on the river wood bench and watched the surrounding mountains turn pink with the sunset as we shared memories from the day and compared sore muscles.
Another experience came shortly after Valentine’s Day when I was dating a route setter at the local gym. Valentine’s Day had come and gone and I didn’t even get a flower from my climbing partner. Wow, climber guys are terrible at this romancing stuff, I thought while on the verge of breaking up with my negligent partner. We were meeting up at the gym after he finished a couple hours of route setting. Our work-out would start with me climbing some of his new routes so I could give him a second opinion on his route grades. I did three before he led me to a new red 10a in the corner. I climbed it and sat back ready to be lower, my arms burning from their warm-up and feeling a little light headed. I wasn’t being lowered. “Try and find the Easter egg,” he shouted from the bottom. I thought he was messing with me. Several people watching on directed me to look behind me. There, taped to the pillar at the top of the climb, was a shiny new Gri-Gri with my nick name affectionately scribed on top of the box. “Happy Valentine’s Day,” I heard from my belayer as he lowered me. “I wanted to do this earlier but Petzel didn’t send the order in time.” In his odd and indirect way, the route was later named, “I Got 99 Problems.”
Growing up with only brothers and their friends, I’m familiar with the age old decision climbing guys face when considering dating. Should they date a climbing girl or work to create their own? I’ve seen my brothers and hiking partners go both ways with scattered success. As I think about the apparent lack of response to this contest as well as reflect on my own experiences, I think one of three things: 1) Climbing guys do not make the effort and therefore there are no great stories out there to be told. 2) Girls that have found their match and enjoy the happiness of romance and outdoors are too afraid to write about the experiences for fear of cursing a very good thing. 3) The problem isn’t them after all, but us, the climbing girl.
I know it is a tough world for girls who are wild at heart. We spend our lives convincing ourselves and the people around us that we are “just one of the boys.” To prove our worth as climbing partners, we shoot down weakness in ourselves and others, enduring all sorts of pain for longer periods of time than a sane person would allow. We live whole weekends dirty and bloody, only to collapse on our beds Sunday night and dream of the next trip. As a result, we have strong backs and souls that could hold up the world longer than the Atlas of Greek mythology. But in this struggle, have we sacrificed our ability to be romanced? Do we notice and remember the small gestures of our partners, or forget them in our rush for bigger and better? Do we accept the flowers or scoff at the vulnerability and apparent weakness therein? I know I am guilty of this and wouldn’t be surprised if this was a sentiment shared by many.
Perhaps next time I am out and about with a prospective or current partner, I should remember several things: 1) A bottle of wine is very heavy. Perhaps a beer in the local tavern is a more sensible expectation. Besides, who wants to mess with a descent severely buzzed? 2) Romantic massages can go both ways and scented oils smell better on clean skin. 3) Having a guy run several miles for help over my sprained ankle is just as good as (better than) being carried out by Fabio with our malfunctioning clothing. 4) The romance might be hidden in the small, routine movements rather than the larger gestures.
One friend wrote to me in response to our discussing this topic and I find some truth in his jest. “As his hand gingerly touched my 'Black Diamond Momentum Climbing Harness 2008' he checked my figure eight knot, stared into my eyes approvingly and said, “On belay.” Is the small romance, the hot chocolate, the route labeling, or the tender belay check enough? In the end, it depends on at least one of the climbing partners, either myself or the other.
Excerpt from Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson.
Context: Greg Mortenson is building schools all over Pakistan, several years before the 9/11 bombing of the World Trade Centers. In this conversation, he is talking with Brigadier General Bashir Baz of the Pakistani military about the Taliban in Afghanistan and America's War on Terror. The excerpt follows:
"You know Greg, I have to thank your president," Bashir said, paging through flight schedules on his high-tech flat-screen computer monitor. "A nightmare was growing on our western border, and he's paid to put it to an end. I can't imagine why. The only gainer in the whole equation is Pakistan."
Bashir paused to watch a live CNN feed from Baghdad. Staring at a small video window inset into the flight manifests scrolling down his monitor, Bashir was struck silent by the images of wailing Iraqi women carrying children's bodies out of the rubble of a bombed building.
As he studied the screen, Bashir's bullish shoulders slumped. "People like me are America's best friends in the region," Bashir said at last, shaking his head ruefully. "I'm a moderate Muslim, an educated man. But watching this, even I could become a jihadi. How can Americans say they are making themselves safer?" Bashir asked, struggling not to direct his anger toward the large American target on the other side of his desk. "Your President Bush has done a wonderful job of uniting one billion Muslims against America for the next two hundred years."
"Osama had something to do with it, too," Mortenson said.
"Osama, baah!" Bashir roared. "Osama is not a product of Pakistan of Afghanistan. He is a creation of America. Thanks to America, Osama is in every home. As a military man, I know you can never fight and win against someone who can shoot at you once and then run off and hide while you have to remain eternally on guard. You have to attack the source of your enemy's strength. In America's case, that's not Osama or Saddam or anyone else. The enemy is ignorance. The only way to defeat it is to build relationships with these people, to draw them into the modern world with education and business. Otherwise the fight will go on forever." pg 310
A five-star book that everyone interested in America's War on Terror should take the time to read.
Last week was my first time in a public school since I graduated from high school in 2001. Continually unhappy with my chosen line of work (read customer service, retail, office administration and paperwork), I have decided to pursue a job in the realm of education to see if I might fair better as a teacher. Frustrated with my work at the rock climbing gym, I completed my paperwork to be a substitute paraeducator and emergency substitute teacher, as well as apply to several paraeducator jobs around Bremerton School District.
I accepted my first sub position from my aunt at an elementary school located in Bremerton School District. Monday was my first day alone with my aunt's responsibilities. To prepare me for the duties paraeducators fulfill, I worked as a volunteer for a few days with my aunt before accepting the position. Laying in bed Sunday night, I was more than a little nervous thinking about my job the next morning.
I got to school early to mentally prepare myself for the day ahead. The first part of the day was filled up with kindergarten reading groups and work as a reading tutor. I had a break in the middle of the day as I worked with two special needs students, then I returned to the larger student population with the Learning Opportunity Room, or the place the bad students go when they hit other children. To make my duties a little harder, Halloween was five days away and the students had a four day weekend due to parent teacher conferences. When I arrived at my first reading group, the kids were bouncing in their very small chairs at their very small tables in eager anticipation of their approaching sugar highs.
My reading groups on Monday were a disaster. I didn't know what pages to read, the kids never really stopped bouncing (who knew such small wooden chairs make that loud of a noise when they hit the ground?), and several times during my first 20 mins of work I had to coerce students out from under the tables with stickers. The kindergartners were working on learning their alphabet and reading simple words like "I" "me" "see." At one point, I realized that my elementary school experience failed me where phonics were concerned. I can read anything, but ask me to speak it and I clam up. This week, we were teaching the kids the letter A. A says /a/, Ant on an Apple, /a/ /a/ /a/. Right from the beginning, I pronounced /a/ wrong and was lucky enough to be corrected by a group of five year olds. Soft /a/, Katie, like apple and ant. I continued to tell myself this for my remaining three days of reading groups. Also lucky for me, I had 20 years on my students and a bag full of stickers, so they quickly forgot my error.
A note about stickers: You can get children to do anything for you with the promise of a sticker. They are like crack. The children can be bouncing off the walls, throwing chairs, or crawling under tables. Speaking your displeasure at their behavior is not enough to change anything; you have to speak within the commerce of stickers. Size also does not matter. With my adult brain, I would think bigger is better and personally choose the stickers that have the most eye catching and colorful surface area to cover the back of my hand. This is not the case with children. More often than not, I would have them clamoring over the pencil eraser sized animal stickers. Content seems to please more than size. However, There is no consistency regarding desired sticker content from day to day, or at least none that my adult brain can understand. A girl that wants hearts and flowers one day referred to as "girl stickers"), demands cars the next day (considered "boy stickers").
The saviors of my Monday, very surprising to myself and co-workers at the gym, were my special needs kids. Since my childhood, I have been nervous around the special education kids. I couldn't understand the reasons behind their actions. I felt awkward and embarrassed at their learning disabilities. Many times, I didn't want them to feel like I was staring, but couldn't take my eyes away from their predicament. The two little boys I worked with this last week changed my approach to special needs children.
For privacy and confidentiality, I will refer to my first little boy as Kevin. My job was to relieve his one-on-one worker so she could go to lunch. During my half hour with him, I was suppose to sit in his class with him and do whatever the rest of the class was doing. Kevin is in a wheel chair with something that looks like cerebral palsy. When I sat next to him, the class was engaged in story time. Kevin's wheel chair had a computer screen with different phrases and words complete with pictures. When the different phrases are chosen, the computer speaks the words. Unable to control his limbs, Kevin moves his head from side to side in order to press buttons and navigate through the menu on the computer screen. By communicating in this method, I realized Kevin was extremely high functioning stuck in a body that would not cooperate.
My half hour was close to lunch time and Kevin was hungry. For the first several minutes of my time with him, he scrolled through the lunch menu telling me all the different things he wanted to eat. Peanut butter and jelly, pancakes, ice cream, yogurt, yogurt pancakes. I didn't quiet know where he would get the feast he seemed to be wanting. His available lunching option on Monday was a chicken burger or chili in a Styrofoam cup. I started joking with him about his desired food choices, in particular the yogurt pancakes. We had the following conversation, me speaking to Kevin and Kevin speaking back to me through the mechanical voice on his chair's computer.
"I would like to purchase yogurt pancakes."
"Really, Kevin! And how do you think you will purchase the pancakes?"
"I would like to pay with a check."
"You are in luck! We accept checks here."
(I grab his hand and act like he is signing and handing me the check. Kevin starts laughing)
"Please put my receipt in my wallet."
"Here you go" as I pull out his imaginary wallet and put the imaginary receipt inside.
"Can I help you with anything else?" I ask him.
"Please put my pancakes in the back of my wheel chair."
So I act like I'm putting the pancakes in the back of his wheel chair. Kevin is now beside himself with laughter, which produces a foamy drool on one side of his cheek. His eyes continuing to look at me all the while, his mouth a huge gaping smile.
The class starts coloring Halloween finger puppets. I get Kevin's paper and ask him with which color he would like to start. He mumbles something that sounds like red, so I pick out one of his red crayons and place it on his thumb. Kevin has special crayons that are very big with holes in the middle. By placing his thumb in the crayon, he can swing his arm from side to side and cover his paper in color. My job is to hold the paper on his desk and avoid getting hit by the crayon. I ask him if he would like to write his name on the top of the page and get an answer that sounds like "yes." We start writing K-E-V-I-N, but he stops me and lets me know that he would rather have me write Tyler on the paper. So we write Tyler instead and Kevin once again starts laughing and drooling. He moves the red crayon from side to side, looks at me and says something else that I don't understand. I think he is asking for another red crayon, so I dig out a different shade of red which appears to be in perfect condition, like the first shade of red. He colors a little bit, looks at me and says the same thing as before. I dig out yet a third perfect looking red crayon and put it on his hand. It wasn't until Tuesday that I realized his favorite color is black and all along he was asking for the black crayon. I should have figured this out sooner, as all the crayons in the bucket are in perfect condition except a very used and broken black crayon.
Tuesday we color pumpkins together... or I draw pumpkins on his paper and he covers the pumpkins completely with black. We successfully covered three pages, front and back, with black strokes. To give him more color time, I started folding the pages in half so he could color one at a time. However, the smaller pages meant I had less space to hold to paper down while avoiding a hit with his crayon. By midday Tuesday, I had black crayon embedded under my nails and along the tops of my fingers.
Wednesday was my last day coloring with Kevin. I tried to shake things up a little bit and got him to switch a few color strokes to blue, my favorite color, and green, his friend's favorite color. It took, for a few strokes, until he would ask once again for the black crayon and cover the green and blue thick with black. Just before my time with him ended, tragedy stuck. In his unfettered excitement while coloring, the black crayon stroked its last and broke in half. I showed it to Kevin and looked sad at his crayon breaking. Kevin started laughing uncontrollably when I told him he needed to choose a new favorite color. Right before I stood up to leave, he looked at me and told me his new favorite color: Red.
Harmony was restored in the world.
I'm a dreamer. Those who know me will attest to this fact. Give me a dull or unadventurous life and I will hatch some plan to inspire that life back into full color, perfectly tailored to that person's wants and needs. One dream is to walk around the world starting with Mexico. Rather than experience a country for a short week or two, the plan is to live and volunteer in a country until I learn the language and culture well enough to compose an anthology of local and personal works. Another is to work six months through the Antarctica summer and live the remaining six months on a sailboat, exploring the high seas and inner ports of countless continents. Still another is to minimize my daily expenses to a small enough amount so I can then hop on a bicycle to hike and ride around the United States for several years, riding north in the summer and south in the winter with all my possessions summarized into a small bike trailer. The list is inexhaustible or, if it does in fact dwindle, I begin researching new opportunities or hashing out the details to some of my classics.
Last week, I had an experience that brought my most classic of dreams a little close to fruition. The classic is my bakery in Hallstatt, Austria. When I was in seventh grade, I quite randomly stumbled upon a picture of Hallstatt and instantly fell in love. I was going to live there someday, somehow. The colors were so vivid, the town so quaint and the scenery such a gorgeous contrast to my current conditions of cloudy grey skies and suburban sprawl. My first plan was to visit as an exchange student, find a handsome local to marry and live the rest of my life in complete bliss lost in the Alps, running circles in large alpine meadows. This plan was later replaced as,
1. I graduated from high school and lost my opportunity as an exchange student (I wouldn't have been guaranteed placement in Hallstatt, anyway) and,
2. I lost confidence in my ability to attract a young Austrian chap by the name of Hans who would fall madly in love with me and beg me to stay with him in his mountainous paradise (what would I have to offer Hans over all the other young American girls clamoring for his affections?)
The dream, in its original state, was too fragile and dependent on external factors to ever be obtainable. Instead, I decided I would go to Austria as a business woman and baker. The bakery is going to be either lakeside or one street up. It will have a patio and hanging basket gardens where one can sit and read while sunning and enjoying a chocolate croissant and cafe. Travelers are very welcome, however most the tables will be occupied with retired Austrian locals. In between baking, I'll collect stories and write them into novels which will never be published. There will be book shelves and they will be selling my favorite works of literature, available only in the language of the author. I'll keep costs low enough to break even and sustain me. (Please read: if you want to visit me in my old age, plan a trip to Austria and I will stuff you with pastries). I will live in the studio/one/two bedroom apartment above the bakery. Again, the apartment size fluctuates as I find a person I think understands this dream only to return to my old age insane and unmarried, living with a cat in a studio apartment above my bakery.
My Hallstatt Classic has been a little further realized by a recent experience at a local bakery in Bremerton, WA. I woke up to a strange, gold filtered sunlight and knew that autumn would come knocking in the next day or so. To celebrate the last day of summer, Bryan and I decided breakfast was a must and headed down to my favorite breakfast restaurant, the Hi-Lo Cafe. However, our arrival was met with a closed Hi-Lo and a sign informing us the owners were on vacation and that we should have a "smiley and sunny day" regardless. No worries, we decided we would walk two store fronts down and purchase some pastries from Luigi's Bakery and have them with tea and sun.
We enter Luigi's Bakery and instantly wish we are no longer in Luigi's Bakery. The entrance is crowded with metal bread racks channeling customers to one pastry display window. Behind the metal racks, the room looks more like an office than a bakery. Stacks of papers line the walls, ovens and counters are somehow absent from the bakery decor, and one man sits surfing the Internet in a far corner cubby. A flustered looking woman greets us and traps us into making a purchase as neither Bryan or I are confrontational enough to turn around and leave. Following the metals racks, we allow ourselves to be channeled toward the pastry display window and gaze beyond the glare of the glass. Inside, our eyes are met with rows and rows of black pastries. My first thought is "wow, these things are terribly burnt" but then I back track and think perhaps this flustered couple knows something about rustic Italian baking that I do not. They do, after all, own a bakery. My gaze passes over crispy black croissants, toasted and brown cream cheese and blueberry pastries, brown scones with blackened fruit, and cinnamon brioches.
I can tell Bryan wants to leave but refuses to make the first move. Flustered woman asks us what we would like. I scan the window one last time to find the least burnt of the ensemble, deciding on an oat and walnut scone and the cinnamon brioche. The pastries are plopped in a bag and the woman rings us up, $4.00. Expensive for burnt pastries, yes, but I have experienced more expensive lessons. Besides, maybe once the burnt is scraped off, the pastries are quite wonderful underneath. After all, this couple does own a bakery.
False. We get the pastries home, make up some tea and sit down to explore the food before us. We start with the scone. First, I break off a crispy currant hanging on to its brown scone home. Rather than plucking, like a current on a scone should, the black circle shatters in my fingers and disintegrates into a pile of carbon. That's alright, I didn't want the current anyway. Bryan breaks off a corner to find beneath the brown and toasted surface, not the sconey goodness we were hoping for, but a doughy and undercooked inside. I'm puzzled. How can you own a bakery, charge $2.00 a pastry, still have your establishment running, and not know how to bake?
We move on to pastry number two, Cinnamon Brioche. Originally, I picked the brioche because it was the only unburnt pastry in the window. As it turns out, Cinnamon Brioche is fancy for World's Smallest Cinnamon Roll. We pull the truffle paper cup off of the pastry and look at the Brioche in all its glory. It's a little smaller than a golf ball. I wonder how the flustered woman and her husband, both rather large individuals, mastered the rolling of this delicate pastry with their clumsy fingers. Who knows, it's-a-Luigi and he owns a bakery. Magic rolls the cinnamon pastry. Bryan and I share a chewy golf ball and drink our tea, firmly decided to never visit Luigi's Bakery again.
So, how did this disappointing experience bring me one step closer to my bakery in Austria? As it turns out, you do not need to know how to bake to own a bakery! My smattering of successful cookies and scones recipes will be enough to secure a large base of patrons. And if my pastries do not pull in the customers, I'll awkwardly loom over the pastry window when customers come in until they purchase something. Then I'll over charge them for something I know they will not be able to eat. If this business strategy does not work in Austria, I know I can at least own a successful bakery in Bremerton, WA. Perhaps I'll name it Mario's Bakery and open it across the street from Luigi's. That way, on slow business days we can stand behind our screened doors and yell "i'm-a-mario" and "it's-a-luigi" across 15th Street until our voices give out and customers vow to never visit our neighborhood again.
