I wandered aimlessly through the mission, waiting for a friend to call back who would eventually straighten me up. Before the pandemic, it would have been easy: I would just have gone to a bar and hung around and made things interesting until I found out I was alone for the night.
I used to love going to bars by myself because it could be an adventure. It was easy to meet new people and get into conversations you could never have imagined and to be amazed and impressed by the parade of humanity that passed by.
I hate going to bars by myself because social distancing makes mixing and blending almost impossible. When I want to sit outside alone at night and drink, I go to a park, offer cans to strangers, and see what happens.
If I didn’t want to go to a bar until I had company, I needed a coffee shop that was a better place to read a book, open a laptop, and be lonely together. Cafes aren’t as interesting in times of plague as they used to be, but they still fit my mood better. Plus: The Mission is full of great cafes.
Unfortunately, it turns out that they close early. Muddy Waters now closes at 2am. Manny’s closes at 3. Cafe La Boheme is supposed to be open until 9am, but it wasn’t open when I got there hours earlier.
I’ve never been on the mission before and wondered, “What the hell am I supposed to be doing here?”
On 24th Street …
The beloved café was also there and open. I’ve never even gone inside. I never wanted to; I’m not the target market for its blend of organic juices and new age spirituality. But damn, I was there and they were open and sometimes you dance with whoever shows up and it changes your life. I was just looking for a place to sit and read over coffee while waiting to have a drink with someone who would never show up.
Beloved Cafe, on 24th Street between Mission and Bartlett Streets, doesn’t have alcohol, but they swore their chai was homemade and it’s been a year since I’ve had a chai at all, so I ordered something. I tried paying in cash but it turned out they didn’t have any change so I switched to a card, asked if they have wifi (not) and then went to their cute outdoor seating to wait .
The chairs are a little dingy, but the outside area is what you want it to be and it’s even more spacious than the inside, which makes it a pleasant option. I hope you can keep it. The chai came out and although I was a little shocked that they called the cup they gave me “big”, it was actually delicious as advertised. I sat and read and waited, alone out on the mission, and absolutely nothing happened until I finally got a call from my friend and we found out that I wasn’t temporarily alone tonight; alone was my condition.
I sighed and winced. Did I really want to go to a bar just to do that again with a beer?
After finishing my chai I decided to go back in and ask about their “Elixirs & Tonics”. It wasn’t so much that I was “interested” as it was a good delaying tactic before deciding what to do next. I looked at the list of offers – “Joy Nectar”, “Lovers’s Potion”, “Resilient Tonic” and “Visionary Cordeil” – and finally decided on the Lover’s Potion (Peruvian cocoa, damiana, hawthorn berries, shatavari, cardamom, rose.) . Water, black pepper, wild honey).
“Oh, that’s one of my favorites!” Said the barista and we discussed the subtleties, whether it should be served with nut milk or coconut water. She prefers nut milk, but I used coconut water. I know what i like
Back at the outdoor seating, two very handsome young people – a man and a woman – came in and took a table and drank tea. I closed my eyes. It has now been over a year since I was allowed to listen. They talked about how happy they are to support their favorite meditation retreats during the pandemic and how glad they are that no one else is supporting their favorite meditation retreats during the pandemic because the facilities are so mostly empty and they don’t have to with many deal with other people.
I was in the presence of enlightened souls.
Photo by Joe Rivano Barros.
“What is your meditation practice?” she asked him and he explained it to her in great detail, including the correct positioning of her third eye.
“Does it have to be aligned with the crown chakra?” She asked.
Yes. Yes he does, he replied.
I let out a deeply satisfied sigh. Oh how I missed these encounters.
He told her some of the words he likes to meditate on as mantras. It’s a long list that includes “love,” “charisma,” and “unity”. But he also told her that the specific language didn’t really matter. “It’s all you’re comfortable with,” he said.
“Wow,” she says. “That is amazing.”
My lover’s potion came out in a serving that made it the healthy food equivalent of a double shot, I guess. It was really tasty – if you like something like this, you’ll love it – but it didn’t open my third eye.
He went on to tell her about the meditation injuries he had suffered from pushing himself too “into places the mind can’t really grasp” and how to make sure to do so in a healthy way. She ate it up. Your back was to me; I wish I could see the look on her face.
Coincidentally, before I went on my mission, I was sitting on a grassy hill in a park talking to a friend about occult strangeness. These are strange times, and epistemology goes to Hell in strange times. If we had been under normal conditions, I would have gone to your table, apologized for the interruption and said, “What you just said reminded me that the Madhyamaka philosopher Nagarjuna wrote about the wrong apprehension the void like picking up a poisonous snake through the wrong end… ”and seen if I could go from an eavesdropper to a part of their story. One where they told their friends, “We were in a coffee shop talking about our mantras like normal people, and we met this really weird guy who was interested in Buddhist metaphysics …”
But we’re not allowed to do that yet, are we? At the moment this seems aggressive and weird, requiring an awkward conversation about vaccinations, and it’s technically against the guidelines to shuffle people at tables (isn’t it? What’s Governor Newsom’s latest decision on that?) Make yourself comfortable. Instead, I listened as she told him how she went to a therapist to purify herself before going to a shaman so the Earth Mother could heal her trauma.
I’m so addicted This is strange and beautiful and an experience I could never have imagined walking away from home. That’s what bars are for. Maybe they come back like green shoots in spring.
The boy said he met Jesus once on the astral plane. I sat back and picked it up.
“Jesus was definitely a yogi and a Reiki master,” she agreed.
There are so many things I want to jump in from my distant table and say, “And he kicked the tech bros out of the meditation retreat!” or “I hear the astral plane has really gentrified!” or “Jesus has a camp at Burning Man, doesn’t it?” But … no … like the nightlife of the mission itself, I’m not quite there yet. Maybe next week.
Make a one-time donation
Make a monthly donation
Make an annual donation
Choose an amount
Or enter a custom amount
Your contribution is appreciated.
Your contribution is appreciated.
Your contribution is appreciated.
Donate Monthly Donate Annually
