Coffee Cup

 I bought myself a fancy, over-priced, expensive Miir mug on Tuesday at Peets. I had gotten up early and gone to get blood drawn for my supposed-to-be-monthly-don't-always-make-it-happen labs. Years ago I started treating myself to coffee and a pastry after morning labs, as a reward for waking up early, fasting and getting poked with a needle. I felt scattered, mind floating, jittery. I had just had a conversation with two white yoga pracitioners who are part of my sangha--people I met in a powerful, challenging yoga teacher training taught by the badass, wonderful, beloved Susana Barkataki. Susanna Barkataki

Some of us meet weekly via Zoom to check in and get support in our learning process. On Tuesday we spoke about one person's commitment to not travelling by plane. When I asked them if that was due to the ecological impact of air travel, they confirmed that yes, that was the reason. I felt uncomfortable because I am nowhere near ready to give up air travel. Climate change is not one of the areas I focus my attention. I recycle. I named my discomfort as part of our discussion about social justice work, liberation work, and how to show up consistently and imperfectly. We talked about how we can push each other and step into more discomfort. We talked about honoring our nervous systems and not choosing suffering 100% of the time. We talked about adrienne maree brown's book Pleasure Activism and finding time to read it together adrienne maree brown

From there, I walked into Peets even though I knew my budget could not truthfully support this treat. In line, I looked on the shelves and saw a short metal cup with a handle and a hard plastic top. I have looked at the resuable cups at Peets many times over the years and never bought one because they always cost so much money. Instead, I have bought disposable cups over and over again, as if the true cost of that was somehow cheaper. This one was $25, an absurd amount to spend on one cup, especially when one already knows one cannot truthfully afford it. 

I bought it anyway. I pushed down the discomfort I felt in my body for not honoring my own self-care, my own limits. I bantered with the coffee seller. I left with my new mug filled with an almond milk latte, a scone in my other hand, no bag. Because, the earth.

I vowed that I would keep this cup in my van. My van that is currently, and most of the time, filled with stuff. Clothes, masks, dog treats, pens, papers, books, trash, food. It embarrasses me each time I get in and yet I have not found or made time to clean it. Because here we acnowledge that human capacity is not limitless as Krystal Collins, one of the Administrators in the Done for DiDi- -White Labor Collective said so generously and wisely last month during book club. I got ready to drive home and then turned the car off, remembering that I had no dog food and that the dog had not eaten since the day before. Walked into Petfood Express, spent $90 on a big bag of food and two heavy-duty bones. Cringed inwardly at the expense and at the awareness of all of the other things that money could do.  Drove home.

This morning I dropped the kids off, staying in the car in the drop off line as they trundled out of the messy van. I saw what I thought was a sign on the mini Jumbotron thing that lives in front of school saying that at 8:15 this morning they would be hosting Cafe with the Principal and the Superintendent. It was 7:55. I was wearing dirty sweats and my slippers, an actual shit with a bra underneath. I was half-accptable to myself for a public outing. I sighed inwardly and then drove home. Changed my clothes. Grabbed my mug. Loaded the dog in the car so I could take him out after coffee. Drove back to school. Got out. Re-read the sign. Realized I had the wrong date. It's on the 14th, today is the 11th.

I got back into the messy van and almost drove home when I remembered the coffee I had at home was decaf. I am going on a one-night overnight camping trip with Lily and her Brownie troop tomorrow night. I am bringing coffee, even though it was not on the list. Because self care is a cup of hot coffee after a cold night of sleeping on the ground outside. Headed back to Peets. Bought a bag of beans, ordered an almond milk latte and sat down to read an article about Lowell High School in San Francisco. What Happens When an Elite Public School Becomes Open to All? 

I was engrossed, the coffee shop was full and I waited, not hearing my name. I got up once to see if my cup was up there. It was not. I got up again and asked the baristas whether mine was coming soon.

"Oh. A woman took that cup and left. She said it was hers."

I held the divorced hard plastic cup in my hand. I felt. . .sad and confused and mad and dumb. My voice was a little quavery when I asked "What should I do?" hoping someone would fix it for me. 

The baristas apologized. They made me a new latte, served in a single-use cup with a single-use soft plastic top. I held up the reusable plastic top and asked "Should I leave this here in case she comes back?" I wasn't just disappointed and sad about the loss of the cup for myself, I was also agitated at the thought that it now made no sense. What was I going to do, throw out the plastic top? Try to get a cup that needed and fit the top? Wouldn't she rather have the top too?

"Leave it for the thief?" a white woman next to me asked in indignation. I didn't respond. In fact, this is where the tears come up for me now.

I have taken things that weren't mine, because I wanted them or needed them or felt in that moment that I needed them. No one has called me a thief, at least not to my face. My young daughter took something that wasn't hers two weeks ago. I didn't call her a thief. Are the three of us thieves, me, my daughter and this stranger who has the cup I bought? I guess so. But what is the point of that word, that story? To separate the good people from the bad? The hurt people from the ones who cause harm? Do we have the sense that every single person falls entirely into any one of these categories?

My daughter, her father and I had a painful conversation about her actions, about how hard it is to regain trust after your actions have fractured it. I don't remember having conversations like that when I was younger. I remember feeling that sometimes I was Good. Sometimes I was Bad. Not my actions but Me, my actual self. I felt a lot of shame, trying to be Good, internally beating myself up when I was Bad. Trying to excorcise the Bad so I could only be Good. Because Good meant Worthy. I keep learning that systems of oppression aim to separate us with this black and white thinking. Shame keeps us quiet. Fear of losing people's love, our community, if we show our needs or our wants or our shadows. I don't want to live like that.

I do not know why that person took a cup that wasn't hers. Maybe she was distracted. Maybe she was in a rush. Maybe she wanted the cup. Maybe she too had a top that needed a cup to fit it. I do not know. It upset me though. I was upset because I couldn't afford that cup and I won't let myself buy a new one now. I was upset because I wasn't paying attention and it was hard not to blame myself. I was upset because it didn't feel fair and I was on the losing end in that instance. And I was upset because I am learning to take up space. That part of liberation work is that I also matter, that I also get to be free. That skipping over my feelings does not serve me or the movement. Skipping over my own anger or hurt or disappointment means that it keeps living in me, pouring out in moments when my tears or hurt might take away from important moments or spaces when I can no longer hold it in and someone says or does something that punctures that valve.

What I know for sure is that this person must be many things, not just a Thief. It somehow hurt just as much to hear that other woman call her that name, in anger that couldn't have been just about my cup. The cup, since it's no longer mine. I wish somehow she could have asked so that I could have given her the whole thing. And truthfully, I might not have given it up. But I might have. And now I just have this top.

I got back into the car and started driving to the park with the dog. Tears came and I wept for a minute. Those tears were not just about the cup. And even though I had a voice in my ear saying "It's just a cup. You shouldn't have spent so much on a cup anyway" I let myself be sad and mad and disappointed. And I let myself weep because it's been a long week of carrying a lot of emotional loads that I have had a hard time putting down.

What we do matters. When I was younger I thought it mostly mattered if I got caught. I was more concerned about what people thought about me than I was about how I acted. I did not know what my values were or what it meant or felt like to be accountable. I did not know what it meant or what it felt like to not beat myself up over mistakes, to not try to hide the parts that seemed Bad but to actually step up and repair harm that I caused. I am learning those things. I am grateful for generous teachers.