Java Love: Do You Love Your Coffee Shop?

Java Love 

It’s natural to love your coffee shop. That place where you get that first cup of love in the morning to stimulate your endorphin love humors to warm the blood for work or other human activities. That “cup of ambition,” that “eye-opener” or “cobweb buster.” Even if your coffee shop is an impersonal Starbucks, you still get the thrill.

My coffee shop, at least the one I wrote about in Java Love, was a very special place. I’m not kidding. You would have loved it. Everyone did.

Java Love is based on the original, Java Sun coffee shop on Atlantic Ave in Marblehead, Massachusetts. 

Marblehead is a magical town. Anyone who lives here, along its rocky shore and among its historic homes, will tell you – there’s something powerful, even enchanted, going on here amongst the layers of history and bustling everyday modern life. At the very least, Marblehead is always beautiful. The light is brilliant or subtle, the sea smoke rises off the harbor, the green light of the Marblehead Lighthouse shines over the rippling water, the moon sits low in the night sky over the silhouettes of historic homes and old growth trees. Though many professional people have moved here, a good many people still make their living from fishing the sea. Many Marblehead people sail for pleasure and the harbor fills each summer with sailboats and yachts from all over the world. It’s also a sporting town with baseball or soccer games on the town field, golfing, windsurfing, kayaking, canoeing, paddle boarding, running races for charity, sailing races for cups; it’s mindboggling how active the town is, and then there’s the festivals, in summer, the Marblehead Arts Festival, in winter, the Christmas Walk when Santa Claus arrives by boat.

So, picture it, the original Java Sun café in beautiful Marblehead. The shop has changed hands twice since then, and many other changes were made with each new owner. Each time the café would become more and more ordinary, not significantly different from the hundreds of other cafés that pop up everywhere, but, in 1995, Java Sun was unique. Its sign was a bright yellow sun surrounded by Africana lettering that spelled, "Java Sun, The Best Coffees Under The Sun." John, a pilot, who had traveled the world and missed the rich coffees he'd enjoyed around the globe, founded Java Sun. He breezed in occasionally, but, mostly, the café was run by a young couple, Christine and Mark, rather like kids babysitting for other kids while Mommy and Daddy were off and away. It could be a wild scene. The kids who worked behind the counter had colored hair - not the usual colors blonde or brunette - but aqua, fuchsia, purple or scarlet. Their noses or eyebrows were often pierced and tattoos covered their arms.

The original Java Sun roasted the coffee beans in-house. The roaster was big and gorgeous: bright red enamel, copper, chrome and it dominated half the café space. A tall young man named Brendon manned the elegant machine, roasting for hours. Burlap sacks of beans from Kenya, Columbia, Sumatra, or Yemen, to name a few of the exotic places, were piled up next to the roaster. The wood floor would get dark with coffee dust and the rich aroma of roasting beans filled the café and wafted out the door and through the walls, often to the chagrin of neighbors who complained about the fierce smell. I loved it. I often came home smelling of foreign lands. The customers were from all walks of life: moms and kids, teachers, car mechanics, fishermen, freelance writers, poets, artists, musicians, herbalists, bankers, lawyers, doctors, real estate agents, accountants and, occasionally, celebrities. Marblehead was often chosen as the location for Hollywood movies, so it wasn’t too surprising to see a famous actor or director sitting at a table having a chai latte. Everyone said Java Sun was the best part of their day, often, remarking, “it’s all downhill from here.”

The place was not fancy. There was a hole in the floor in front of the bathroom you had to leap over. But, the back windows, usually left open even in winter because of the intense heat from the baking and which you looked out over the barista’s shoulder as you ordered your coffee, opened to a rose garden filled with songbirds. The front windows looked out on to a busy main street alive with constant action of people and pets, children, babies in carriages, nursery school teachers pulling toddlers in red wagons, bicyclers, runners, skateboarders, roller-bladers, cars, and boats on trailers passing by. The fruit and vegetable stand across the street was vividly beautiful, as were the jewelry and clothing stores. Happy flags flapped from each shop and friendly doggie bowls of water were placed out at each front door.

I always sat in the corner where I could watch the action. The constantly changing activity never failed to stimulate my mind. At first, I wrote by hand in marble notebooks, but, as technology progressed, I worked on a laptop. The sight of me working in the window became somewhat iconic: at the time, not too many folks had a computer at home, let alone a laptop in a café. Of course, I hoped to write undisturbed, but I was often interrupted by people asking me what I was writing. I would tell them, and they’d be even more baffled. “A novel.” “A screenplay for the X-Files.” (“What’s the X-Files?” “Well, it’s about two FBI agents who try to solve paranormal cases.”) Or, if I were freelancing: “Copy for an extreme website.” “A travel fax/newsletter.” Hmmm. What was that again?

I preferred to be quiet. I loved to experience the people on my own terms, quietly. I loved to zone on them, who they were, what they did. Christine was gregarious and maternal; she always introduced people or spoke loudly to them asking personal questions as if to include the whole café, which was already a boisterous, free-for-all, more of a hang-out, really, than a coffee shop. Before long, I realized I was "getting" a poem for each person as he or she entered the café. "Oh, no," I thought, "that would be too many poems!" But, that is exactly what happened. I wrote a poem for each person who inspired me. Some of them didn't. But, mostly, I was enthralled.

I was in Java Love.


Afterward:

Everyone loved their poems. After reading her poem, Maine Sarah clutched her heart. Alisha laughed with delight. The Mechanic was told by one of the patrons that he HAD to read his poem. Other people went quite mad over the Mechanic’s poem, because the man’s arms were so massively built, but he seemed to take it in stride. Christine said I was her family, which was exactly right. Another woman, a dancer, was thrilled to read that she had “legs of wings.” The poems received a lot of warm smiles. People remarked, “No one has ever done anything like this for me before,” or “I never thought I’d have a poem written about me.” My favorite compliment came from the young man who papered his bedroom walls with the pages of Java Love. No literary prize could ever be so marvelous and rewarding. The title came about one quiet evening when I was the only customer in the café. Two of the kids were saying how much they loved each other. John walked through just then and smiled at me as he opened the door to leave. “It’s Java Looove!” I explained, and he laughed, approvingly.

from Java Love: Poems of a Coffeehouse:

The Mechanic

Sometimes,
when there’s nothing
left to believe in
you can believe in

his arms

©Patricia Goodwin, 2018

Patricia Goodwin is the author of When Two Women Die, about Marblehead legends and true crime and its sequel, Dreamwater, about the Salem witch trials and the vicious 11-year-old pirate Ned Low. Holy Days is her third novel, about the sexual, psychological seduction of Gloria Wisher and her subsequent transformation. Telling Time By Apples, And Other Poems About Life On The Remnants of Olde Humphrey Farme, illustrated by the author, and Java Love: Poems of a Coffeehouse are Patricia's latest poetry books.

Rape is About Sex and Sex is Power: Stop Saying It Isn’t!

Danae and the Shower of Gold Coins

Titian, 1544-45

At its best, sex is the ultimate power of loving and being loved in return. Lover and Beloved. This powerful force makes the world go round: people fall in love, get married, have children, cook, eat, work, play, travel, make art not war, and enjoy life.

Any upset to that serene balance of lover and beloved and we have rape, sexual assault, sexual molestation, sexual harassment and a myriad of other disturbing crimes, many of which are in the news now.

I have more than earned my right to speak. #notokay, #metoo are both absurd understatements compared to what happened to me. My real father put his dick in my mouth when I was 3 and my mother caught him. She wanted to commit suicide after first killing me. I don’t blame her. Her life was ruined. My father went on to abuse me for years starting again at age 11 when I was cognizant of what was happening, but still too young to know for sure that what Daddy was doing was wrong. I had the vague notion that I was cheating on my mother with her boyfriend. (It’s all in Holy Days.)

Those episodes were just the beginning of a lifetime of the kind of sexual harassment and assault that most women face every day. Boys “feeling me up” in school and on field trips: men, on a daily basis, since I was 12 years old, stopping their cars, opening the passenger door and asking me if I wanted a ride (I could have been murdered hundreds of times.); men pinching my ass on the street; men making comments on my breasts; men ogling me and grinning lasciviously; men harassing me while I put coins in the parking meter. I could go on. Men asking me to smile actually made me smile; it seemed friendly and funny compared to the trauma I’d gone through, though I can understand how some women might find it annoying or even threatening. It wasn’t until I moved to the quiet town I live in now that I could cross the street unmolested. I still remember the first time I stepped out of the car on the busy main street and walked to the coffee shop and not one man leaned out of his car window and hollered at me. Wow.

There have been professions I did not enter for of fear of being molested or sexually and professionally bullied – and, from the reports I’m hearing now, I was right.

I speak from experience. Long experience. I can tell you, as a victim, I do not appreciate it when I hear therapists and other so-called experts telling victims, “Rape is about power, not about sex.”

Bullshit.

Rape is absolutely about sex and sex is about power.

Sex is power. Think about how powerful you feel when you are looking sexually attractive. Think about what powerful men want to show off their wealth and power – a beautiful woman. What is the most powerful image in advertising? Sex. (Although, Death runs a close second.) What made you stop and look at this article? A bare breast.

Rape is about sex and sex is power. That’s why every rape victim feels powerless. Every victim is sexually damaged. That’s why victims have to re-learn their sexuality. This is especially true of victims of childhood abuse in which the abuse is their first sexual experience. Victims of child abuse must take that first experience forth into their lives, whether they want to or not, as the definition of sex. In fact, I’m willing to bet, for most, that first sexual experience becomes a deep, sexual identity to which they respond sexually from that day forward. It was like that for me. Of course, as I got older, I discovered other things that turned me on, but that first experience has been seared on my brain and sexuality.

Saying rape is about power, not about sex is a disservice to victims. Oh, sure, it’s a nice catch phrase and it probably helps victims for the first few seconds. But, then, the doubts creep in. “But, what about the way I feel when…” “But, why do I have trouble trusting a man?” “But, why do I feel so guilty? And dirty?” “Why would I rather not have sex at all than deal with any of it?”

Do I have a solution? Yes, get rid of guilt. Guilt is more bullshit. The only thing to ever feel guilty about is hurting another person or yourself. And, your guilt is hurting you. Drop it.

I’m glad about what’s happening now. Women are being taken seriously. Women are being believed. And society is responding with justice. Hopefully.

I am especially happy for the children. At least, I have hopes in that direction. A few adult men have come forward to say they were abused as child actors in Hollywood. Actor, Anthony Edwards. Michael Reagan, son of Ronald Reagan. Corey Feldman, Hollywood actor famous for his roles in “Bad News Bears” and “Stand By Me,” who has been screaming for decades about rampant sexual abuse by Hollywood producers, is finally being believed. I do wish he would take this opportunity while the tide is turning to speak up now and name names. I wish he would not wait to raise the $10 million he needs to make the kind of film he wants to make – or I wish someone would help him make his film, like in a Disney movie, magically, I wish a good man or woman would appear and help Corey reveal the truth. Not much can be done until these pedophiles are named and arrested. At the very least, and it's a lot, parents can stop lying to themselves about what’s going on in Hollywood and protect their children.

Children are out there even as I write, suffering. I hope they will be helped by the changes to come. I hope. But, the children seem to be the last to be heard. There is an International Sex Slavery system and if you don’t believe it, you are naïve. Hollywood is just a part of it. The Catholic Church is just a part of it. Every so often, there is a purge. It happened recently after a series of articles in The Daily Beast about the situation of children being used for sex. What usually happens is, the old are weeded out. One man is revealed to be a molester. His friends and cronies drop him like a hot potato, and, after a few months or so, he dies. That’s usually the pattern. It’s been the pattern for the international child abuse ring since time immemorial, since Caligula’s uncle used to throw little slave boys over the cliff when he was done with them, up till the present day, when care homes, like Boys Town; homeless kids and Hollywood child actors, are harvested for victims. One man said, in the film An Open Secret (not available at this time, but here's the trailer), about Hollywood child sex abuse, “that’s the way it’s always been!”

I’m happy for the actresses who, hopefully, no longer have to worry about the casting couch. I’ve watched them demure in interviews for years, saying, “Well, I’ve heard of the casting couch, of course, but I’ve never actually experienced it myself.” Now, they are finally talking. But I worry about the hotel workers, office cleaners, nurses, waitresses, farm workers, factory workers, big store clerks, small store clerks, late nights at McDonald’s, late nights coming home from the mall or the hospital or the office.

I’m hoping the justice we’re seeing now will translate into a deterrent in the future. Maybe that guy with a hard-on will think twice before “expressing himself” (what a man I know called sexual abuse) by violating another person. Senator Elizabeth Warren, in a recent interview on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, said, “…When the jerk over in accounting decides that pressing up against women who are caught at the coping machine might not be smart. When the boss decides telling those dirty jokes and talking about whose got great boobs and a killer ass, that he’d better re-think his management strategy, when that sort of thing happens for women all across this country, then we’ll know there’s been real change.”

But, really, I want to quote the Great Master of Horror, Stephen King - “I know they say that a stiff dick has no conscience, but I tell you now that some cunts have teeth…” By the way, the Indie film "Teeth" is available to watch now on Netflix.

Sex is power.

In Holy Days, my heroine, Gloria muses that every girl should get a pink gun at birth with five legal shots. Gloria decides that since men would never know how many legal shots were left in that gun, they’d have to behave themselves.

Sex is power.

©Patricia Goodwin, 2017

Patricia Goodwin is the author of When Two Women Die, about Marblehead legends and true crime and its sequel, Dreamwater, about the Salem witch trials and the vicious 11-year-old pirate Ned Low. Holy Days is her third novel, about the sexual, psychological seduction of Gloria Wisher and her subsequent transformation. Her newest book is Telling Time By Apples, And Other Poems About Life On The Remnants of Olde Humphrey Farme, illustrated by the author.