Go tell the bees

parents want to see their children
want to keep them close, hold on to the idea that maybe a person really can have everyone they love close to them for their entire lives, like we all still live in small towns, like small still towns are possible and enough, like maybe parents can build their kids something to keep the world from getting any bigger, like they never have to send their kids to no big city where no beautiful girls ever get trapped under truck wheels like asphalt, where no beautiful boys will ever spend their lives looking for something that they will never find, like hope maybe that all their kids will ever want is that childhood bedroom with the crooked gaps in the hardwood floors, gaps that spill basement light through them like stars in a black sky when the lights are turned off for sleep, like there is a life that’s possible to have everything you’ve ever made under your roof with you as you sleep, like when you sit back in the small secret garden in the back of your small secret bungalow in the suburbs you will not see your life pass before your eyes and feel the aches of your small shrinking body and instead you will not think about your parents getting any older and you will have no regrets like these things were possible
parents want for their kids that they will never have to send their beautiful girls to any big city where their hearts will ache for loves that they think about passing by without them, like their children will never die and never regret missing their parents birthdays or mothers days or fathers days and will ache for months because they got to see their father open his new grill and when they see that they will think about all the other things they missed that they will never see because their parents could not build them a place where they were contented with their childhood bedroom and instead they went away to the big city and got their hearts broken and missed birthdays and had their hearts ache and missed their families
kids want for their parents that it is okay to never be a doctor or a lawyer or anything other than a child who is trying to keep the world from getting any bigger and spreading so far that it takes them on the tide, kids want for their parents that they will never get any older or any more tired and they will only get more wise like parents are wise because parents know that there are no more pleasures in the world that matter besides sitting in the secret garden of their secret bungalow with their kid in the hammock and their dog chewing on a stick beside them.

No matter how much experience you have or how much you are capable of doing, your first day at a high end, fast paced speciality coffee shop will consist of collecting, washing, and sorting dishes.

When you are a bar-back, you will practice the art of non-existing.

You will take up only the space between chairs, between tables.

The dishes in your hand will never clatter or disturb.

Your mission is to become non-existant. If you are seen, the magic is gone. 

You will tell yourself a million things. You will pretend to be an astute French sommelier, pausing between tables to collect himself. You will swear to be the World Barista Champion, listening for a word of your success on a stranger’s lips. You will denounce your ego, pretending that non-existing is actually a moving meditation dedicated to your yoga practice.

You will move fast, and think faster.

You will shame a ballerina, making her feel large and clumsy with your quiet grace.

You will break nothing.

You will challenge yourself to admire the color of the lipstick on the side of the demitasse cup instead of despising the woman who smeared lipstick all over the demitasse cup.

Because you do not exist, you will see nothing and hear nothing.
Because you do not exist, you will see everything and hear everything.
Use this to your distinct advantage.

You will learn people before they learn themselves.
The tastebud is the home of pleasure. If you want to hand a man his heart on a plate unsuspecting, you must first learn to discern his tastes before he can anticipate desiring.

First, you must appear to not exist. Only then may you become an artist.

coniferous- always alive, until you’re dead.

It’s been over two years since I took this photograph, standing on Petrin hill staring at the beauty of Prague, and I haven’t stopped missing it a single day since.