Everything happens for a reason.

It's been a long few months.  Right now, I'm no longer unbridled in Los Angeles, but tethered in my hometown of Vienna, VA.  Not tethered in a bad way, just safe, financially stable, and back in the nest, a feeling I haven't experienced for several years now.  But one thing this lack of survival-mode has given me is the chance to reflect, and one incident in particular is worth mentioning, especially in this time of an economy that is anything but friendly to the bright young minds that are being turned out of top schools and not able to find a job anywhere near their area of interest, and sometimes even to head back home.

In 2008, I was working at a coffee bar in northern California.  It was no Starbucks, in fact a request for a double tall skinny soy vanilla latte would invite a scoff from most of my fellow baristas: "We don't do syrup here.  Why don't you try... (insert curled upper lip and disdainful tone) Starbucks."  In addition, Doge featured the best Venetian wines, also a Starbucks deficiency.

But it was a vibrant place, a watering hole for Europeans and Stanford students and everyone in between.  I was able to practice all of the Romance languages in a single day and hear hosts of tales from my customers, like Sergio, who had cut through the North Pole on a nuclear submarine years ago or Pierre, who had gotten a speeding ticket for going too fast on his racing bike.

The one thing I never got at the coffee shop was sufficient training.  I was pretty much thrown into a job which I was unqualified for, pretty much because I'm good at interviews.

"Just get on the register.  Call out the drinks to the other baristas and learn the drinks when things are slow," were basically my instructions.

The problem with the most popular coffee shop in a small town is that things are never slow.

My co-workers began to resent me.  They thought I was too chatty (hands up...guilty.) and they didn't like me "ordering them around" instead of making the drinks myself.  Of course, I was having such a good time, I was oblivious to the growing passive-aggressivity for a long time.

Until, one day, my manager a Stanford senior, pulled me aside and asked me to come into his office for a chat.

"Shannon," he said, closing the door. "Do you even like this job?"

"Of course!" I said, baffled by the question. "I love this job!"

"Really?  Because you haven't learned the drinks.  You're still burning the milk.  Your latte art is sub-par, and no offense, but I've seen you pull some pretty crappy shots."  I was speechless, tears pricking behind my eyes.

Of course, by shots, he meant of espresso. This is a guy who spent his entire Spring Break going to "espresso cuppings" up and down the Pacific Northwest coastline.

"I want you to take this week to think about whether this is the right fit for you."

"Um, ok", I said, fighting back tears.  "Can I have a minute before I go back in there?"

"Of course," he said.

I went outside in the alley and proceeded to throw a mini private fit.  I called my mom in a rage, declaring that I went to an Ivy League school and I don't need a 23 year old kid to call me out like that and I don't even need that job.

I was about to run back in there and say, "You can't fire me, I quit!" and make a huge Jerry McGuire-style scene.  But that's not my style, so I resolved to prove him wrong.  I gathered my composure and went inside, back behind the bar.

It was a lazy Sunday afternoon, so I had a chance to practice my cappuccinos and the little leaves on top and getting the milk just right.  When I had had enough practice, I grabbed a rag.  As they say in the restaurant, "If you have time to lean, you have time to clean."  (Probably my worst favorite concept of all time.)

As I was rubbing down the counters for the fifteenth time, a man came into the store.  He was handsome, older, with dark hair and deep brown eyes.  He had two books in his hand, and the top one was Don Quixote .  It was quiet, and my manager was gone, and the only other barista there was my least resentful co-worker, who hated customer interaction and loved making drinks.

"Are those for business or pleasure," I asked.  I flirt when I'm bored.

"Well, I'm a writer so I'm trying to be a reader."

"Whew, that's a big read for a Sunday."

"Not much of a reader, are you?" He poked.

"Um.  Yes, actually.  And, I'm a writer too.  What do you write?"

"Well, I used to be a journalist at the LA Times, but recently I published my first book about growing up in a bar on Long Island."  He didn't bother to name the work.

"Wait.  The Tender Bar?" 

"Yes.  Do you know it?"

I couldn't believe it.  I did know that book.  I loved that book.

"I read that in my senior year of college.  I liked it so much that I gave it to my professor.  JR Moeringer, right?"

"Yes.   Nice to meet you.  Now, what do you write?"

"Well, I said.  I'm unpublished.  I guess my feelings about writing can be summed up in a quote by Thomas Mann.  'A writer is someone for whom the act of writing is more difficult than it is for anyone else.'  I'm kind of a perfectionist...and hopelessly ADD," I said.

"Who did you say said that quote?"

"Oh, Thomas Mann."

On that note, he produced from underneath the giant de Cervantes tome, a book with a tree on the cover, whose title I can't recall, by none other than Thomas Mann himself.

"Whoa. Creepy." I said.

"It's destiny," he said. "All I can say is, they say that to master anything, it requires 10,000 hours of work.  So, get going.  Just write."

We exchanged emails and kept in touch for a little while, and though I haven't corresponded with him in years, I never forgot that moment.

That week I put my nose to the grind stone.  I hardly chatted with the customers, I practiced my drinks religiously, and made some damn good latte art.  I thought I had redeemed myself.

That Friday, as we were closing, all joking and laughing, my manager again took me into his office.

"Shannon, I want you to know you did a great job this week.  You did everything that I asked and it all came together for you.  But, unfortunately, I already hired someone else who is more of a barista.  If I had a management position for you, you would have it, but that's not what I need right now."

I laughed.  The rage was gone.  I had done my best, and I was over it.  I took off my uniform shirt, handed over my key and said, "Sayonara."

After that, with no job prospects, I made the decision to head home again, to regroup.  So, I packed up my life and headed east.  However, instead of being the end of an adventure, it turned out to be the beginning.  Upon leaving, I got a yoga teaching certification, spent a summer helping my grandfather with a genaeology project, taught yoga all over DC, witnessed the Obama inauguration in person, connected with a yoga teacher in LA, headed back to Cali, where I had another three years of adventures to put into the 10,000 hours in which I have begun to make a dent.  Yes, I started writing.

I was not meant for a career as a barista, or a yoga instructor, or an actor, or a saleswoman, or a temp, or a physical therapist.  Those are roles I have played, some of them even quite well, but above all I am a writer.  My roles are simply vehicles to collect the stuff of my real life's work.

So, the moral of the story, is that nothing in life that happens is bad.  It might hurt. bad.  It might make you cry.  It might make you throw a Jerry McGuire-style tantrum.  But it all happens for a reason.

-Mahalo <3 br="" nbsp="">