Haley VandenHazel
In Search of Lost Time
Turning Point Essay
4-5-15
There are specific moments in our life that spark personal growth and divert our path. These often occur to us so gradually that, “even if we are able to distinguish, successively, each of its different states, we are still spared the actual sensation of change” (Proust, 117). The sensation was the coffee.
It happened the first time as I was sitting in the living room on the plushy white couch waiting for my brother. As usual, the whole family had arrived on-time and we all sat in a maddened silence. “Get downstairs for family meeting” my mom howled at my brother who would eventually grace us with his presence several minutes later. As to save me from the exasperated worry about homework getting done and the promise these meetings always gave of conflict without resolution, my dad offered me a drink of his black coffee. Taking my role seriously as the mature eldest child, I accepted the test. I will never forget the playful glimmer my dad’s eyes and the humorous eruption that followed as I squinted up my face in utter repulsion. If I would have known these looks from my dad would become unwonted occurrences, that one day very soon he would stop looking at me like that, I might have endured the entire mug.
It happened again one beautiful spring day in Eugene, Oregon, a couple years later. My best friend and I had decided to go to “Tall Frappuccino Day” at Starbucks to celebrate our last day together before summer break. After waiting in line for twenty minutes, apparently Chelsea ordered a Soy, Green Tea, Trenti, Frappuccino. After the drink had been created she gave me that contemptible guise that had served as the pinnacle of my utmost irascibility that year. Not only had she failed to bring her wallet, she hadn’t paid attention to the fact that she was supposed to order a tall Frappuccino, and she had ordered some ridiculously overpriced drink. In this moment, I realized that she was my absolute foil in the sense of responsibility but she had, within herself, what I did not. She had a way with people, an infectious personality that drew people to want to know her. She was just irresponsible enough to bring fun and spontaneity to my life. This experience was but an extension of the running joke that she owed me like 300 dollars; of which payments have yet to be collected.
Coffee was a part of my image when I became a hipster but then soon rejected when I became a real hipster. Coffee made me believe that we are all just telling ourselves that it tastes good, when it actually doesn’t; an example of a major conspiracy theory of mine. Coffee was the morally sound option to keep me from becoming an alcoholic. Coffee was the place for friendship and the mentorship; the drink of choice to be paired with the most beautiful and truthful words ever spoken to me. Coffee was the big white escape from vulnerability; the cup of emotional separation between two people. Coffee was the friend that kept me feeling affirmed, energized, and alive; simple but complex, always consistent. Coffee was always paired with overcoming my own perfectionism, my own close-mindedness, my own obsession with binding repetition and structure. Coffee helped me see other people, in their imperfections, as redeemed by God, precious, and worthy of love. It turns out coffee was actually none of these. Nonetheless, I have become intimately attached.
Works Cited
Proust, M. (2003). Combray. In In Search of Lost Time (Vol. 1, p. 117). Random House