Vague Ritual

When I stay in Agoura, as I did this past weekend, there is only one place to go for coffee, I mean unless I go to the gas station or the diner, I have to go to Starbucks. I don’t hate Starbucks (or really, the gas station or the diner) but for the first cup of the day I prefer something else. (I just sat here for 5 minutes trying to come up with a better description than “else”: less burnt, less corporate, less cigar-butt-like, less empty, but none of them really hit the nail on the head, so I went for vague, sorry.)(Actually, maybe “less vague” is the exact term I was looking for!)

So at around 5:55 am, I got into the car and headed to the town. The other people who are up at this hour are mostly middle aged (I now think of 60 as middle aged) men in full Lance Armstrong regalia, and horse people, identifiable by their footwear, and they are all friendly and wide-awake.

“Morning!” “Hello!” “Another hot one today” “Wooowee”

The best part is: No one is looking for conversation. It’s all business. (Although once one of the Lance Armstrong guys was sitting, with his tight blacks and his cap and his shirt with the built-in elbow pads, in front of a lap top saying “Would you look at that?” and pointing to the screen. “How is this possible?” he exclaimed, begging for someone to come have a look. I took the bait and saw some of the guys from the Tour de France riding up the hills of the French countryside. “This is happening right this moment…as we speak!” he practically had tears in his eyes. “Technology!” I said, and that was pretty much the extent of it).

Like I said, it’s all business. There’s no thought or emotion other than: Coffee. Get. Have (sometimes there’s a “People” in there). But this weekend there was a sign on the door that said “Take Comfort in Ritual” and I blew a fuse. First I thought: I hate (love) quotes or daily thoughts put up in public places; depending on my mood I can be inspired: Yes! I will! So true! Or annoyed: Oh fuck off. Stop shouting.

Take Comfort in ritual. First, I thought yes coffee, ritual, comfort but then I thought isn’t ritual religious, isn’t it something we study about a tribe or culture to learn more about it and isn’t it weird that coffee drinking could actually be a symbol of our time that people study about us thousands of years from now like cave paintings or weird rock formations?

Then I got home and looked it up on wikipedia and it said also:

“ In psychology, the term ritual is sometimes used in a technical sense for a repetitive behavior systematically used by a person to neutralize or prevent anxiety; it is a symptom of obsessive-compulsive disorder.”

And then I thought, yes that’s it.