There stood my godchild, the innards of a 40 cup coffee percolator upside down in her hands, insisting she’d read the instructions to the coffee maker and it was just a big French press. Her mother, meanwhile, was filling the huge pot with water in which swirled finely ground Starbucks Christmas blend. Mom had a quizzical expression on her face. I was struck with the thought that the soon to arrive 70 guests were probably not planning on drinking campfire coffee.
So as Emily vainly tried to explain that you plugged in the coffee pot and let it steep for six minutes after the water boiled and then plunged the objects in her hand down through the resulting mixture until the top was left a pure brown, I gently turned her hand around and suggested she was holding the coffee basket and stem upside down.
At first glance, I wasn’t sure I felt we could trust the world to people who have never before seen a percolator style coffee pot. I mean, there simply has to be some standards applied and that, in my mind, is where the line needed to be drawn.
Emily’s husband is in the military, and in today’s world that’s enough to make me walk around holding my breath every time I think of them. They are so young, so beautiful and so hopeful. They have their whole lives stretching out before them and they still can’t believe how incredibly lucky they are to get to spend that future with each other.
As I visited with her and her husband, I was struck by how kind they were to each other and to the people they touched throughout their day. They hadn’t yet acquired a sophisticated ennui or sarcastic exhaustion to the world. I wanted to wrap them up tightly so the world could never make them hard.
On the plane coming back from San Diego, I sat next to a young lady who at first glance seemed to be a typical Southern California Valley girl. I heard her talking to the man on the aisle seat and the word “bubble head” came to mind. So I stuck my nose as far as I could into my book to avoid any possibility of eye contact during the flight. I thought that the last thing in the world I needed at that point was silly chatter since I’d just finished a newspaper article about the tsunami’s death toll reaching over 100,000.
But at some point during the meal service, our eyes did meet and she opened up a conversation. As a veteran plane traveler, I know how to end these conversations quickly. But before I could, she told me she loved to travel and that’s why she had become a stewardess and that she’d been lucky enough to travel all over the world for her company which did charters for military families.
We talked the entire length of the trip from Seattle to Anchorage. She was fascinating. She’d been to most of the places it had taken me a lifetime to reach and she’d done it before she turned 23. Instead of a silly Valley girl, which she clearly once had the potential to become, she was an articulate, interesting young woman who knew there was a whole world out there that was different than us and it didn’t frighten her. It intrigued her.
Whenever I think the world is spinning out of control and all hope for the future should be abandoned, I’ll think of these young people with whom I was privileged to spend my holiday. They may not know what a percolating coffee pot is, but they want to learn. Their minds are open and they have the energy and optimism of youth that we so often lose as we age.
When you’re with them, you know the world is going to be OK and that no disaster, whether man made or nature generated, will defeat them. I left them with my own spirit renewed, feeling re-energized about the future. In a year of political campaigns that left me feeling slimed, they made me feel as though I was emerging from a refreshing shower, ready to face the New Year and all it may bring.
And just one quick note to Alaska Airlines. If you are going to continue to use planes with less and less seat space, are cookies and potato chips really the wisest choice for your in flight food service? Do you not see the inherent problem in that juxtaposition? Just a thought for the New Year.