The coffee this morning tastes strong and green, like the summer day. Bright like the sun when it’s rising, still white in the early day sky. The heat is already hanging in my hair, my head, the leaves. Sweat covers everything that dares to step out into this new, new day; it mingles with the dew to coat everything with its tiny droplets, perfect clear circles of moisture; tokens of relief in the white hot sunlight.
The Bookstore porch is quiet this morning, too early for our regulars yet. It gives me a chance to sit and watch as the day opens up. There is a time in the mornings that has been the same forever. No matter what, nothing changes it. It is that time when the night closes its shades on the deeds done in the darkness, and the sun begins stretching and reaching and cutting through the darkness to bring the world back into focus again. Another twelve hours for a chance at living.

I was dusting the shelves one morning when they walked in; wearing the same white hair helmet, same dark suit jacket and same red tie with the small design on it. They were the same, that’s why they met each morning.  To confirm that their view was still the best view of the way the world should run.

They took their coffee … black.

I noticed that the coffee wasn’t as hot as it should be; not the way we would’ve made it. But it was made by someone my son’s age, what do they know yet about good coffee?

I watched as my girlfriend focused her phone camera on her own coffee cup, strategically placed between her knees so that the picture she was about to post to FB would just happen to include a clear shot of her legs; fifty-two year old, complete with spray on tan legs.  I wondered to myself, does she really believe these rival those 20-something leg shots out there?  Does our view of us in the world really become that skewed as we age, or is it that some of us choose to skew it that much in order to tolerate ourselves.

I mean after all, we’ve been living with ourselves for over a half a century now.  Think about it; our children get to escape us, our men try (some succeed). What can we really do?  We can’t truly get away from “us.”

Actually, it’s probably clearer than we’d like it to be to us. Who we are, and who we’ve become; women alive but over the age of really being allowed to live.  FB just has a way of enabling us in putting our pretend selves out there; and then a way of winking back at us once we’ve hit “post.”

So, the question becomes, what do we really want? If life would give us anything we desired at this point in it, what would we ask it for?

I glance back at my girlfriend sitting with a smug grin on her face while reading the replies to her “coffee cup” post.  There’s your answer, right there. “Pay attention to me!”  Listen to my thoughts, my dreams. I still have those just because it seems to you I’ve already lived mine out, I still have more dreams to chase.  Respect my words because they are coming from a deeply profound and learned place within me; driven by years of wading through the world’s muck and still arriving on solid ground in spite of it all. Believe in me and my abilities, my insights, my suggestions.  And, above all else, continue to adore me like you did when I was that age with the legs, so many years ago.

All this so that I don’t have to keep trying to be what I once wanted to be; what seemed to make me so appealing to you then, when I was just a young girl.  Ironically, I am that now. But you no longer seem to find it appealing in me; you find it older.  All this so that I don’t have to keep making a fool of myself; so that you notice me and that I’m still an important part of this world.

That’s it really. I just want to feel that what I’ve done has really mattered to someone in this whole big world. I want to feel that I’m as important a life now as I felt I was 20 years ago.

My friend isn’t a fool.  She’s just foolishly reaching for the things she thinks she’s lost because she didn’t invest in them and save them earlier.

Life is like a bank in a way.  In the beginning we tend to do a lot of withdrawing and spending.  We invest in the things that bring us fun and excitement.  Then, in the middle, we begin to realize that much of what we were investing in was bringing us negative or little returns.  So, we refocus and begin to invest and draw from what we’ve created thus far.  Education, knowledge, skills learned and children; and, we save away memories of those creations for later in life, when we believe that we will have more time to  remember the joy of them.

But, at this point, not the end, but not the beginning either, we look at what we’ve saved, spent and invested in up to now.  We assess if we need to add to any of these.  So, my friend is feeling that she needs to add to her fun and excitement; I think she feels that will give her more in her savings for later.  I’m not so sure that’s how it will work out for her though.  Sometimes we need to realize just what the interest rates are actually costing us in the end.

That said, my approach is different but maybe not that much more redeeming.  I was feeling the same things; I just decided to handle it in a broader way.  I had my share of fun and excitement through the years but that doesn’t mean I’m ready to give that up in life. Hence, was born The Last Bookstore on Earth.

A place that caters to odd thoughts and new, older ideas; a place that knows who walks through its doors and what they’re looking for, what they want to invest in for their lives.  A place that knows how hot the coffee should be.