Not All Who Wander Are Lost

Aahhh sunny California. Full of indulgences: sunsets, surf, art, artists, alternative culture, organic food, coffee, cafés, the outdoors...
There are so many facets of life in California I want to dive into and hang out in, treading water for a while until I can execute my next move. Just taking in the sunny days and glorious sunsets is a full-time commitment in itself, and not one to complain about either. Sometimes I wish time could stand still so that I could allow myself to fit in as much as possible in this one moment before the next moment arrives. As usual my next moment is identified only insomuch as a few things I would like to do or a few places I would like to be; the same destinations, ideals, or ambiances I am always chasing after or viewing at a telescope-lens-like distance from right now. That's the downfall of transience. If time were frozen in THIS moment, I could idle here for a while and make a community for myself; define a neighborhood, a routine, a group of "friends". I haven't been able to do this since Fairbanks, and haven't been stationary in real time since New York. The other downfall of my own nomadic lifestyle is that with those "likes" lingering in the near distance I become stunted in my ability to be boundary-less to any opportunities I see...because I would "like" to get to such-and-such a place by such-and-such a time. My good 'ol alpha-control freak attempting to latch onto anything that resembles a plan...

Yesterday in sunny California, I humored myself with an interview for barista at a family-owned café near UC Berkeley. With all my traveling and picking up menial jobs, I was feeling confident that they would just go ahead and hire me on the spot, since menial jobs for me always include some sort of café food service. In short, I've got the experience.

At the interview, which lasted an hour and a half and included three broadsides of questions (all different sheets with all different questions mind you) delivered by three different interviewers-namely, the owner, then her husband, then the only barista on shift at that time of day, then the owner again- I suddenly became my own personal advocate for my recent traveling lifestyle, and my own worst enemy as I tried to defend myself for the sake of a minimum-wage, part-time coffee job yet seeming only be digging myself deeper in. Or was it for the sake of my integrity that I rambled?

Then there was that weird scenario where I started to loosen up (after an hour-plus of interviewing, sheesh!) and allow my quirky sense of sarcastic humor to seep out. I was pretty certain I grew another head right then and that they suddenly understood I was from another planet, but still the questions continued. "What's your dream job?" "Name something at a workplace that annoyed you". "What's your passion?". " I see you over here with art, and with education, and us over here with coffee...so where do we meet?" "How do we know you won't leave us in six months (for an art job)?"

In retrospect I realize they all were to have been answered like this: "coffee! coffee! coffee!". I just couldn't do it. I couldn't stretch myself that far. To the point of outright lying that is.

I also couldn't stretch myself thin enough to pretend I had a dream job in mind, lying out there in some achievable distance, at some definable location, in some measurable time frame. I told them honestly at one time I had a definition for that phrase, but that life throws curve-balls and I'm mastering my dodge move right now. And for that I think they derogatorily wrote down "drifter", "flake" or "wanderer" next to the dream job question. At least I re-checked my integrity, if only to myself.

The only things I can affirm: Coffee's good, but not life-altering. Making it's fun, but not for a lifetime. Minimum-wage part-time jobs should not be allowed to conduct two hour interviews. And in the words of JRR Tolkien, Not All Who Wander Are Lost.