The Repentant Starbucks Fan

The other morning at Starbucks, I pulled up to the drive –thru’s intercom and placed my order. “One Venti iced Chai with light ice, one vanilla scone, and one Tall water.” The female voice on the other end responded, “No ice in the water because it’s for George, right, Shannon?” I couldn’t believe it! She couldn’t even see me; she just knew me by my voice and my order! This could mean several things: 1. I go to Starbucks way too often. 2. I need to get out of my rut and order something new. 3. My voice is so odd that everyone recognizes it.

While I definitely hate the fact that companies like Walmart and Starbucks often eliminate the local mom & pop businesses when they move to town, I must admit that I am a Starbucks fan. (As a disclaimer I must disclose that there is no other coffee shop near my house, so I’m not putting anyone out of business.)

Mainly, my local Starbucks gives me the much-needed sense of community that I miss in Las Vegas. And I really need it, because Vegas is an odd town. Most people here don’t know their neighbors, even though their houses are literally ten feet apart. People are very transient here, so you often don’t get much of a chance to know someone before they move on again. And almost no one was born here, so everyone comes from different backgrounds with different histories and different cultures. It’s difficult to find common ground to bring everyone together.

But at Starbucks, of all places, I feel a small-community vibe. They call me by name (just like on Cheers!) and when I sit outside with George, people stop and pet him and talk to me. Sometimes I peruse the front page of the New York Times and feel like I’m connecting with the real world. Sometimes I buy the CD that is playing inside, expanding my music repertoire to include world music, Jazz, or oldies. On the bulletin board inside are community notices where I can read about the next book club meeting, poetry contest, or swimming lesson.

I completely recognize the irony and cheesiness of the previous four paragraphs, and the sad state I’m in, if Starbucks represents so much to me. But for now it will have to do. I will walk in under that bright green awning and have Karen or Will call me by name and make me my regular drink, and I’ll feel more comfortable in, and connected to, the community I’m in. Someday maybe we’ll live somewhere where my neighbors and the community itself will give me that feeling. But for now, I’m a Starbucks fan.

The Ritz

After my time in NYC and CT, Lance and I had a nice visit in Indiana. And my hometown in Indiana is about as far from Vegas as you can get. Bible Belt vs. Sin City. Stretch limos vs. pickup trucks. Backyard sprinklers vs. the Bellagio Fountains. And this contrast is refreshing, allowing me to recharge my batteries, relax, and reprioritize.

My hometown has a population of 3500 people, and my old high school gymnasium seats 5,000, showing the importance of basketball in Southern Indiana. The town is situated in green rolling hills among expanses of corn fields, ponds, and winding two-lane highways. Amish buggies occasionally bump along the roads, and men on tractors often block highways until they turn off toward a field with a friendly wave.

When I am back home in Indiana, I like to immerse myself in the culture. One way to do this is to go to breakfast at the local diner. The Ritz Motel has a small restaurant that serves breakfast and dinner, with specials listed on a dry erase board by the kitchen. Lance and I ate there this week during a thunderstorm, and between bites of slightly dry scrambled eggs and sausage links, I jotted down the conversations of the people around me, most of whom were men in overalls or work clothes. The first phrase that drifted over to me was “same sex marriage,” which naturally caused me to perk up my ears and intentionally eavesdrop. I also heard:

“…climb in a hayloft and fall asleep.”

“…on the prayer list at church. And they’re just the cousins of someone she knows.”

“…tractor…”

“The corn grew overnight this much!”

“…football…”

“…just called and said all the lights went out. Their power is out.”

“…put a can of mushroom soup on top of it. I think that would be good.”

“…a little smart car. Look at that little goober.”

“Gotta go mow a field of hay directly.”

“We’re gonna have wheel meat – you know – meat that comes in a round loaf.”

I don’t think we could have been any more immersed in the local culture than we were that morning. But we did try to do even more. We sat in on a jam session with local musicians at a Saturday morning farmers’ market. We caught fish off the pier over my uncle’s pond. Lance killed a snake for my Grandma and later helped set traps for the mouse we saw skitter across the floor of our cabin guest room. We planted flowers at Grandma’s, played ping pong in my uncle’s garage, and took morning walks to the mailbox with two overeager hound dogs. Oh, and who could forget Lance getting spit on by an old man at the farmers’ market who had bad aim with his chaw of tobacco. (I told Lance it was his initiation, but he wasn’t amused.)

It was a great three-week trip, and now I’m back home with George and headed back to the daily grind, which seems less of a grind after being gone so long. George is curled next to me as I type this, and my suitcase lies still packed on the floor next to me. Back to exploring my own local culture…

It smells like rain...

When I was a kid, my friend Hilary and I convinced her mother to let us go camping in the woods behind her house one night. By “camping” I mean sleeping in the woods in a sleeping bag on the ground. We must have been pretty young, because we only needed one sleeping bag, and we were not worried when it started to rain; we just propped an umbrella over our heads and went to sleep. After a few hours Hilary’s sister was sent out to find us and bring us back in the house. My memory of that night isn’t the uncomfortable ground or being brought home early; instead I remember the novelty of sleeping out in nature. The sound of the raindrops in the trees. The smell of the wet earth. The dark that encircled us warmly, protectively.

Rain has always been special to me, especially now because I live in the desert and always yearn for a good thunderstorm to give life to the dry city. But it was special to me even before I moved to Las Vegas.

Rainy days during my childhood meant it was time to snuggle inside and work on a sewing or drawing project at the kitchen table or help mom make a pie or batch of cookies. Or I would stand at the back screen door and watch it come down in a comforting stream until the spring on the hill behind our house overflowed and caused a temporary creek across our yard. Once the rain slowed, I put on my boots and grabbed my umbrella and floated boats in our driveway puddles.

In college, rainy days gave a welcome break to the daily monotonous grind of classes and homework. A day with an umbrella roof, spent ducking from one building to the next, forced students closer together and was therefore cozy and more fun.

I think George has “inherited” some of my rain-love. Even if it’s coming down hard, he will paw at the car window until I roll it down for him. Then he sticks his head out the window and shakes from head to toe every minute or so. The other drivers must think I’m nuts, but I just drive on, humming a tune to the beat of the wipers, with a wet dog hanging out the window.

Rain in Las Vegas is always welcome, but it’s different than Midwestern rain. The desert sky is so stark and huge, and often you can see that other areas of the valley are getting rain while the sun shines on your area. (Rain envy!) Usually the sky teases you with a few drops on your windshield, then nothing. When it does actually rain – real rain that forces you indoors – I always run outside under our patio and just listen, and watch, and inhale. Nothing is more soothing than the steady fall of rain. Musty. Cleansing. Romantic.

I’m writing this from Indiana, and tomorrow’s forecast is a 60% chance of rain. Heaven.

On the train

Would it be possible to be a professional people-watcher? I write this on the train from New York City’s Grand Central Station to New Haven, CT and am reminded that people-watching is half the fun of travel. I sit and study the man across the aisle from me. He is a businessman in a fuchsia and yellow striped tie and is eating a bag of Doritos while reading a newspaper. There’s a chewed pen sticking out of his shirt pocket and beads of sweat are on his brow. His shoes are perfectly polished.

The man behind him has his laptop appropriately on his lap and all I can see is his face above the seat as he types. Every now and then he grins at the screen.

Farther down is a white-haired woman whose hair is in two buns behind her ears. She reads through pink glasses and wisps of hair keep falling in her face. Her hand brushes them back repeatedly.

The rest of the train is a sea of foreheads and hairlines sticking above the seat backs. A group of businessmen is having an animated conversation at the far end of the train car, and every now and then a hand flies above the seats to accent a point. The train noise drowns out their words but their foreheads are smiling.

A moment ago the conductor took my ticket and nicely answered my questions. He wore a blue uniform and a sharp blue hat. Does he like his job? He seemed to.

Scenery is passing in a blur: rock walls, a glimpse of tombstones on a hill, air conditioners jutting from apartment windows.

The man by me tilts his Doritos bag and pours the crumbs into his mouth. The white-haired woman turns a page. Am I as mysterious to them as they are to me? I sit with suitcase and water bottle, my red hair the only red in the mass of head tops. I wear sensible traveling shoes and a new ring I bought in Midtown Manhattan and I constantly scribble in a notebook. Do they know I write about them?

The Rules

It may make me sound like a Goody Two Shoes or a Polly Prissypants, but I have to admit that I am one who follows the rules. If a sign says Keep off the grass, I do so. I am the one who sits at a red light and obeys the sign that reads No right turn on red, even though the cars behind me honk impatiently. I also throw away my trash, slow down in school zones, and obediently pick up George’s poop.

But I have learned, in dealing with the public during my many jobs, that the majority of the population could care less about rules because they think the rules apply to everyone else.

I am thinking about rules today because this weekend my job was to corral and coordinate 450 children, 100 volunteer parents, and hundreds of audience members through our annual Spring Concert performances at Nevada Ballet. So I ask you to please stop for a minute and think about what I just said. 450 children. 100 volunteer parents. Probably 1500+ audience members. See why rules are important? And yet so many of the people I encountered this weekend still think rules don’t apply to them.

Over the past three months we probably told the parents 20 times that they would pick up their children after the show in the lobby. But still we had parents who showed up at the backstage door and angrily demanded that their child be allowed to leave.

There was an extra side door backstage that we blocked off with curtains and signs saying Do Not Open Door, for security reasons. Still, the volunteer moms would open this door and let people in during the show. They thought surely it was okay – it was just their husbands after all.

And after the performances, classes were brought to the lobby one at a time, and ushers made sure children were picked up by a parent and didn’t run blindly into the crowd to be lost forever. Still, we had parents who angrily told me that we were ridiculous and that they shouldn’t have to wait. So I guess they thought we should just allow all 500+ audience members backstage to wander around and find their kids?

During the performances, even after repeated requests for audience members not to text during the show and shine light on the people sitting behind them, they usually only put their phones away after an usher finally told them they would be escorted from the theater.

Even the veteran volunteer mothers who had done this job for years caused problems, thinking they could take their classes around the building to meet parents, instead of going up the side of the theater and following the path we had created, from checkpoint to checkpoint. They got angry, not understanding that anyone who didn’t follow the rules made our system fall apart. We needed to know the location of each class at all times. Just because they had done it before didn’t give them special privileges.

These rule-breaking people have shown up in my other jobs, too, when I was performing for a living. At the Venetian, there were the people who would sit and smoke right next to the huge NO SMOKING signs. And at every show in town there are people who take flash photos after hearing the No Flash Photography speech. They think they will just sneak in one photo, and then they end up blinding the performers on stage. Why can’t they just realize there are reasons for the rules?

To me, the best example of this kind of thinking happened when I danced at the Stratosphere and had to pose in costume with the audience after every show. After too many photos in which drunk men inappropriately copped a feel or tourists draped their sweaty armpits on our shoulders, we finally put ropes in front of us so that people would stand in front for the photo and not be allowed to stand next to us. But many people would JUMP OVER the ropes and touch us anyway! Who did they think those ropes were for - only the crazy people? Many of the people who jumped over were good-natured, nice people who innocently wanted a picture with the pretty girls. Yes, they may have been nice, but the ropes were for everyone! People just tend to think it’s okay for them to break the rules. After all, it’s just them, right?

Okay, after three 12+ hour work days in a row in which we instilled rules for the overall purpose of giving children a safe, rewarding performance experience, I needed to vent. So thank you very much. Now I’m going to go throw my Starbucks cup in the trash can, yield to oncoming traffic, and drive a perfect 35 miles an hour all the way home.

Moments

You know those dates in history when people remember exactly where they were when they heard the news on that day? Like JFK’s assassination, or the moment war was declared? My generation remembers where we were when the Space Shuttle Columbia exploded (sitting in a high school class, I remember staring at the speaker on the wall in surprise as the principal announced the news), or when we first heard about the attack on the World Trade Center (our friend who lived in Philadelphia woke us up and told us to go turn on the TV).

But there are other moments in life, completely opposite to these disastrous ones. These I call my Magic Moments. These are the ones in which suddenly I am completely aware of my surroundings and seem to wake up and notice the magic in that single, simple, unforgettable moment.

One of these moments happened at the dog park last summer. George and I were alone at the park and he ran around while I sat enjoying the quiet. A butterfly flew by me, its white wings glowing in the sun. Then there was another, and another, and before I knew it the air around me was filled with thousands of white wings, glimmering against the blue sky. The large "flock" of butterflies took probably a minute or two to fly by me, and I sat there the whole time with my mouth hanging open in surprise and a goofy smile on my face. I kept looking around for someone to share it with, but I was alone in the large park – the only one to witness the parade of nature passing by me.

My Mom once told me about the Magic Moment she had when she was about 25 and flew alone to Korea to stay with my Dad who was stationed there. When the plane flew over Japan she had a full view of Mt. Fuji from her window. It was so beautiful she kept thinking she should reach down and get her camera, but she didn’t want to take her eyes from the beautiful scene in front of her long enough to get it. It was that entrancing to her. Definitely Magic.

Other Magic Moments in my life:

• Driving in a taxi in the middle of remote Chile and stepping out onto a dirt road to look at the stars with four reknowned astronomers


• Sitting on a wall of the Acropolis and noticing the sounds of the city below me – an occasional dog barking, the distant hum of traffic


• Walking in line to get my Master’s diploma during Commencement at Regis University in Denver and almost crying because it hit me how lucky I was


• Sitting in the audience of a musical in Louisville when I was nineteen and realizing everything that truly mattered to me in life was right there in that building: Mom, my friends, and the theatre


• Waiting in the wings in the white-blue light before my entrance in The Nutcracker’s Snow Scene, amazed that I was about to dance in the very show I had seen every year as a child


• Waiting in my high school hallway, in line for our first commencement rehearsal, and hearing "Pomp and Circumstance" inside the gymnasium for the first time


• Walking to the train station in Vicenza, Italy at 5am, through deserted cobblestone Medieval streets, hearing our footsteps echoing for blocks through foggy silence

Of course many moments in my life have been magical, such as getting married to my husband in Hawaii, getting my first professional theatre role, or simply being at home with my husband and feeling lucky to have what we have. Those are of course magical, but those aren’t what I’m talking about. My Magic Moments come out of the blue and hit me in the gut, awakening me in a different way. For me they come as a welcome surprise.

I'm wishing you all many moments of peace, butterflies, and Mt. Fuji.

Trust me.

There is a lot of mutual trust at the dog park. I trust the woman who gives George a treat from her pocket. I trust that George won't dig in the dirt and get muddy. I trust that the stranger sitting next to me on the park bench isn’t a weirdo. I have a tendency to give people the benefit of the doubt, and a general optimism about the world, which I learned from my mother.

Of course parents often know when their kids aren’t being truthful. It’s easy and understandable for parents to know the truth and demand it from their kids. But I feel that sometimes it’s also important for the kids to feel trusted. Completely. And I have a reason for this belief.

When I was a teenager, I wasn’t one who disobeyed the rules very often. Sure, I would stretch the rules and come home a little past my curfew, or I would talk on the phone too much or roll my eyes indignantly, but overall Mom and I trusted and respected each other.

One Saturday night when I was sixteen my friends Kat, Chad, and April (names not-so-cleverly changed to protect their identities) piled into my car for a weekend drive through town. After several loops around the town square, through the Pizza Hut parking lot, and up to our hilltop ski resort Paoli Peaks, Kat suggested we go to the Riverside Café, a tiny local bar where she knew she could pass for 21 and get us some alcohol.

Now, please know that this was not our normal weekend routine. We were nerdy theatre kids who usually spent the weekends at rehearsal or playing cards at our director’s house. But Kat was more worldly, more mature, and more daring. So we nervously sat outside, not thinking about the fact that we were in a small town where anyone could recognize my car and wonder why we were parked there. And what was I thinking? My Mom was a teacher – in the Bible Belt – where people who drank were marked as sinners. Mom used to buy her wine coolers in a town 30 miles away so people wouldn’t gossip, “I saw Mrs. Bradford buying alcohol at the liquor store today!” She had a reputation to uphold.

Anyway, that Saturday night wasn’t momentous. Kat bought a six-pack of wine coolers, we kept driving around town, and later I dropped everyone off at their prospective homes and went home. I never even had a drink. Like I said, we were nerdy.

The next Monday, Mom picked me up at the front of the high school at the end of the day, and I knew by her face that something was very wrong. Instantly my stomach turned to rock. “Look in the back seat,” she told me, her mouth in a hard, thin line. I turned to see the six-pack of wine coolers sitting defiantly on the seat. Kat and Chad had left them in the car! Quickly I searched for an excuse and put a confused look on my face. “Where did those come from?” Mom asked. “Um, I don’t know,” I said, stalling. I looked back again at the incriminating evidence and continued to look confused. Then I came up with a story. “We were up at the Peaks this weekend,” I began. “And I gave the car keys to Kat so she and Chad could hang out at the car while April and I were inside. Maybe it’s theirs?” Kat had a reputation for being a little wild, so I hoped my lie was convincing. Luckily, Mom accepted my story. After a few more questions we drove home, my stomach still in knots and her face still frozen in anger. We never talked about the incident again.

Looking back, Mom probably knew I was lying, but she gave me the benefit of the doubt. She trusted me, or at least gave that impression. And how completely different our relationship would have been without that trust. Deep down she knew I was a good girl, so instead of demanding the truth and instigating an argument, she accepted my story and left it alone. She gave me maturity and responsibility by accepting what I said. Instead of yelling, “I know you’re lying!” she questioned, listened, and then accepted it. After all, all the wine coolers were unopened, so how bad could we have been?

When I was tiny, I stole a pretty scarf from my Aunt Mary’s house and stuffed it in the pocket of my overalls. When asked about it later, I told Mom I had put it there “so I could play with it later.” Instead of forcing me to admit it was a lie, she made me go back to Aunt Mary’s, return the scarf, and tell her my excuse. I was nervous, but it taught me to fix my mistakes. And it taught me that Mom trusted me.

Some may read this and think Mom was too easy on me. Of course you can’t always accept the lies your kids tell. But sometimes, showing that you trust them is more important than demanding the truth. Mom and I had the greatest, deepest, closest relationship a mother and daughter can have. Don’t be afraid to trust your kids. Even if at times they don’t deserve it. Trust me.