What does one stay up for? A café napkin probes the question. Is the answer one word, or thirteen? Can the reason be summed up in one word, ambition, or does it take two, work ethic?
The location for historical rendezvous and social networking, cafés exist as central to life. Yet, dotted along European and American streets, these colorful and “unique” spaces are not obviously useful or productive as far as contributing to the greater good goes. They contribute to a different sphere of society. The answer lies in questioning. Why do people go to them? What do they do there? Did they plan on gaining energy from caffeine, or other people?
Fluorescent light as our companion during the night and early morning, people in the developed world are blessed (?) with the option to extend and shift around the definition of “daytime.” Not news to you, I gather, but taken for granted indeed.
The little tasks of life’s maintenance, menial at times, string together in the work of a life. Intricately woven, spider’s webs are creations each time they are made. The little creatures cast their silky thread out and hope that the wind carries the thread to a steady source to begin the web. I wonder how often they must begin again, using the same strong thread to make a reality out of nothing.
Spiders creeped me out growing up. My dad would pause reading Tolkien to me before bed to stand on a chair and use a Tupperware cup to catch a spider on my ceiling. We’d take it out together and watch it tickle the earth till it reached solace in a dark corner. Slowly, I grew to be able to take care of the spiders in my room on my own. Though I do not like them as roommates, I appreciate their intricate bodies and legs. How they manage to coordinate all those legs astounds me—especially on days when it seems I can’t smooth out my gait and I feel like the BFG, galumphing about this planet.
Whether plodding along or skipping along, may each step forward be energized with ambition and hope! Imagination holds such possibility and hope within it—Emily Dickinson encourages us to “dwell in possibility.” Perhaps even take a step forward and make that a reality. Take that risk, go out on a little but strong thread of a spider’s web, and, perhaps, rethink the caffeine.