Starbucks

Breezewood, Pennsylvania.

Starbucks.

August 2nd.

And in this crossroads of highways, tucked between mountain passes, an unlikely man is my barista.

In this town, homely, strangely made up, and pleasant people who drive down shale hillsides to come to work to wait on travelers passing through East to West, West to East.  They look like sensible, patient, mountain people. 

Plucked from the middle of a copse of American larch trees, this man aimed for stars and landed in Starbucks in Breezewood.  His California smile and manicured hands didn't fit  with the generations of coal-caked men who were his forebears.  No slow rocky drawl, his voice was pep and verve.  His eye contact more sincere, his gestures deliberate and graceful.  The careful wrap of waxed paper around a cherry bar, the regal posture as he wrote "latte w/ honey" on my paper cup.  He didn't belong in Breezewod.  But he did find sincere joy in each interaction.  Eyes the color of the evening mountain hazes and a voice smooth-ish like the underside of pitch pine bark.  His well-anchored and contented eye contact helped anchor me that evening.  I have thought of him often since we passed through and his memory reminds me to try to be as stately and sincerely content wherever I am.  Even as I say this, I am fully aware that "stately" is probably never a word that will describe me, but it's something to shoot for anyway, right?