Colorful light pours through the windowpanes of the stone building, up on the northern point of Manhattan. I’m here on a Saturday. It took about an hour on the train from the Lower East Side. I like the train, as I don’t have to think about driving or traffic. I just hop on and let it rattle me around for a while.

Sitting on a marble ledge in the corner of a bright green garden, I listen to the sounds of summer. I’m here by myself, and it’s peaceful.

I’ve always liked stained-glass windows. I love the vivid colors. I’m leaning into color as a source of light. Not light of the sun, which itself isn’t color. But light as inspiration. Light as joy. Light as meaning.

The light of day is colorless, traveling as wavelengths and illuminating what is. In fact, nothing has intrinsic color. Life is colored by our perception, our brain, our eyes and our mind. We determine how we see the world. How insane is that?

What the heck is color? Just waves? I’m fascinated by how each color gives a different mood. I like what those moods represent. Blue feels cool and powerful. Green is life-giving, grounding, restorative. Red is fierce. Strong. Volatile. Purple is calming, mysterious and deep. It’s always been my favorite color.

As a human, I’m finding this balance between earthy tones and gaudier ones, particularly in my style — the things I wear, the way I decorate my apartment.

Last week I was in Central Park on this beautiful sloping meadow with large boulders. I was doing some calisthenics on the boulders, just squatting and balancing, and it felt like being on a backpacking trip where I would do the same thing on the rocks.

I felt like an earth bender, or a samurai, or a monk. I’m a Virgo, and I recently found out from a candle at Whole Foods that the Virgo is the earth sign. I enjoy feeling grounded, connected to the source, at peace. Who doesn’t, right? When I feel this way, I feel my best.

I like the flashier colors for the details. My apartment is randomly accented in lime green.

I have a bracelet of iridescent beads that I got from a street stall here.

I wear a hair tie and I have a pack of different colors. It’s a simple joy to choose the color every day.

Those simple joys are everything. They seem insignificant — who cares what color my hair tie is? But those insignificant details make up the fabric of our lives, because those insignificant things are really what nobody knows or understands about us but ourselves, and because we’re the only ones who know or care, they can either matter or not matter.

I want them to matter.

Hair ties.

Stained-glass windows.

A cup of coffee.

There’s so much telling us to be afraid and discouraged by the world. We have to take it upon ourselves to find joy again.

We either choose to see the color in the little things, or we don’t.

At times I feel melancholic, overwhelmed by the passage of time. Am I doing enough with it? Am I enough? I guess is what I’m asking.

Enough for this world. Enough of myself. I get discouraged by the big things that seem important — my career, relationships, pain. It all feels like it passes so quickly, and I’m wasting time if I want to take it slow, or if I simply don’t know where the hell I’m going.

But we’re all going somewhere — the grave.

Not to be a downer, but that inspires me to open my eyes. Smile. Relax.

Take the time if you got it.

I wanna take the scenic route to where I’m goin’.

I wanna take the long way home.

Remember who you are
Remember the mission
To enjoy your life
That’s it
And this is me enjoying it.

The things we worry about now will mean nothing in six months, three months, one. Come back to gratitude. There’s nothing to gain from being so hard on yourself.

Just relax. Everything will make sense in time; it all just ebbs and flows. Emotions. Days. Longings.

Now is all there is. Even though it can feel complex not knowing how things will go; even though the future feels both scary and bright, let go.

Who cares.

Who cares.

Who cares.

Beneath you is nothing but a future of sky, clouds, and it’s up to you how fast or slow you wish to float. You can slow down so completely that you lose yourself in your morning cup of coffee.

You can drift through the sky of life renewing each morning your oath of gratitude, or you can fall through time like a brick. Hoping. Waiting for a day that never comes.

Just take a breath. Let yourself float, even as you tend to life. It’s ego that thinks you should be doing more, better, quicker. Let go of all of that. Chill the fuck out. Long game.

It’s okay — good — to acknowledge how you truly feel. Scared, nervous. Just fucking tired. But whatever’s meant to be will be. The more arduous the journey, the sweeter the reward.

Now I’m in the coffee shop, the place to go when I don’t know where to go. Those sorts of places are important. The places that have been around forever.

The coffee shop. The outdoor market. The park. The museum.

It’s Sunday morning. I usually opt to sit outside, but today I am sitting inside at the coffee shop in the Lower East Side. I like to listen to these sorts of places. Sink into the vibes, the details.

I wear my headphones a lot, but what’s it like when everybody’s listening to the same thing? It’s probably good for us. I had this realization last week as I walked through the farmer’s market.

It’s nice to take off the phones, pretend I’m in an ancient marketplace, just listen to the sounds of curiosity and commerce, a gentle buzz of human activity that tells me I’m alive.

It’s comforting.

Nobody knows where to go. And so we meet here, at these places for all people.

I’m watching rain fall through the large window. I had a scone. It was crusty and didn’t do a ton for me with the first bite, but it got better and better.

Maybe that’s the wonder of the scone. It doesn’t dazzle, but it delivers. Perhaps that’s what we should hope for out of life. A satisfying, subtle scone that maybe surprises us in the end, having taken us somewhere we never expected.

The last of my espresso looks like a galaxy of stars. The decor is beautiful, the espresso cup a dark, coffee cherry red. The table looks like red marble and has a satisfying feel to it. The energy of the shop is calming and bright.

I like being in a coffee shop because I enjoy seeing what’s going on behind the bar. How they do things compared to how we did them at Highwire, the shop I worked at in Oakland, California.

I enjoyed being a barista. It was my favorite job. The morning rush. The regulars. The tactile act of making coffee brought me to the present moment. If I were going through something, the daily interactions with regulars and my coworkers cheered me up.

It felt like a community, as customers would come in and offhandedly tell me about what they were going through as I poured their espresso, making me feel less alone.

Customers would sometimes mention how the ten minutes at the shop was the most peaceful part of their day, and that made me feel good. I was glad when they shared, as I was making people’s day with a cheeky cortado, and they were making mine in turn.

Mostly customers shared a few cordial words, nothing more. But the small talk meant we were a part of something.

What ancient wisdom is there in the melody of a coffee shop? In the revival of a cup o’ joe? Much. All.

I told the barista the espresso was delicious. I remember my favorite customer used to tell me or whoever else made it that his cortado was delicious, and he would describe why. He would come in, drink it, and look out the window.

I felt like he was a wise fella, like what seemed so insignificant, his daily cortdado, was the key to happiness. It very well may be.