They Shut Down My Starbucks

Blog 2562, 25 January 2022, Tuesday                                  

Dear friend,

I slept seven hours last night. That’s like a normal person sleeping twelve, I think. I am at peace with life. Yesterday I intentionally set aside the project I was working on and intend to let it sit for a few months. I’ve been getting up and going directly to work until I reached a plateau in the work. I reached that point when it was wise for me to set it aside and get back to reality,  but I didn’t stop. With the mad effort to get to a good place to take a break, I reached it and kept going. Compulsion is one of my driving forces, it pushed me to go further. I recognize it as a form of addiction, a force I know well. So, yesterday, I set it aside.

It feels as if I took a deep breath and looked up to find an existence away from the computer. This morning I went out and walked to my favorite Starbucks at Main and 148^th and found it was closed. I wondered, “How long have I been in hibernation?” They don’t give a reopening date, and I’d probably guess correctly that it was a lack of staffing. I was living the Rip Van Winkle story.

I think Starbucks is a foundation point in many people’s mornings. It’s not a good thing to disrupt. The last thing the Starbucks people should want is for their customers to realize how much cheaper it is to make coffee at home, how many fewer calories you give yourself, and missing one more line to be in each day is a gift of time. I could imagine it cutting people’s commuting time by five minutes a day. Starbucks have backed themselves into an alley and need to find a way out that doesn’t retrain their consumers. They can’t “bully” themselves out of this situation.

Today I then walked to the local QFC where they have their own Starbucks stand, a place that sells really old people 50¢ coffee, and there I read and worked on one of those “evil” sudoku puzzles that I get on-line. It was cold this morning, there were no other walkers, the air was crisp, and I felt free to stand straight and walk easily, no longer crabbed by imaginary obligations from my own project. It feels like a very good time in my life. Love,

Jeannmarv

Written and Posted, 7:45 a.m., Tuesday