Coffee Stop

Bodega Bay smelled like clamshells and salty sweet air. We heard the water lapping on the shore and a distant harbor horn, and we pedaled our bikes on a frosty morning in search of coffee and some internet access. We found a place run by an old hippie-esque guy with a long white beard. He was telling a customer that he had discovered it is essential to get out and really look before backing up his old Bluebird bus. As someone who tries to avoid reverse whenever possible, I could relate to this and told him so. Then I ordered some coffee and a homemade cinnamon bun and asked if there was wi-fi.

"You mean the world-wide web?" he asked. "I guess you could probably get that someplace. Maybe if you had the right password."

This made it sound possible, but not exactly offered; I didn't feel like pressing it, so I went and sat at a table beneath a yellow ukulele to enjoy my coffee. A guy in jeans and a sweater came in with a large round cake pan and began to ask the bearded guy questions about baking and the significance of a second rising with yeast bread. On this subject our friend was much more forthcoming. He talked freely about the life cycle of yeast, its proper smell and timing, and the art and science of the baking process. You have to admire a man who understands yeast.

"Did you grow up here?" I asked him.

"I've been here all my life," he said, "but I didn't grow up. I'd say I'm still about seventeen, although my body has a few issues with that."

I'll never know how, but somehow from there we got on the subject of the Burning Man Festival, which this guy said he had been going to for fifteen years. I asked him what motivated him.

"The better question is how I ever get motivated to come back home from it," he said. "There are so many reasons to be there. Art, for example...amazing, temporary art...it's created just for the moment and it's gone. But the thing is you don't go there to look at the art or to hear music or watch what's happening, you go there to be a part of it."

"And the other thing," he continued, "is that it isn't about commerce. There's no commerce. Somewhere along the line, our culture made commerce the most important thing, but that was an arbitrary decision. There are better things to be based on."

The cinnamon bun was yeasty and adequate. I never did find out if there was wi-fi.