Coffee and Stars

I wrote this in March while sitting in a Starbucks in Fullerton California with California Stars in my head.

A coworker just IMed me and we tried to joke about me— the Mormon in the Coffee Shop. Neither of us knew enough about coffee to make very funny jokes, but the smell has jogged my memory and coffee and stars have come pouring out.

What I do know about coffee is the sight of it drying in great red bean heaps on burlap sacks in front of Andean homes. Where every boy in town has been working in the fields from morning to night because it is harvest time. Every home you enter offers you a “cafecito” that you graciously decline.

I can picture the streets of Barrio Monsenor Moreno now that I have written it. I can see them climbing right up into the tops of the hills. Low cinder block homes, papaya trees, and bean-covered burlap stretched out on the steep sidewalks. I can feel the sticky vinyl benches of the ancient door-less vans that take you to the top for 25 cents.

I loved it when we were up there so late that the buses stopped running and we would have to walk down the hill in the dark, the air finally cool after another hot day, echoing feet on cobblestone streets, and the sky full of more stars than you can imagine.