Raveolution

BEAT: Troubadour

If left up to me, I most likely would have never discovered this place, nor, quite possibly, ever visited this part of town.

Zoe and I walked into Cafe Troubadour through a back street already in a fringe part of Democracy Proper. My existence, I realized as I sat across from Zoe, was comprised primarily of the confines, where I grew up, the hills, where I live now, and the few blocks of the city that were referred to as democracy proper.

I was accustomed to seeing the occasional vagabond, but overall, I was used to some level of cleanliness and manicure, of sunny, walled suburbias partitioned like office cubicles by tall, particle board resin fences. Initially, I thought the cafe was dark and musty. This cafe smelled of incense and, though clean, it had an air about it that made me think that this locust was not afraid of its incense smoke fallout or any other kind of dust. I mistook the soft natural light coming in from a solar tube as darkness when it was actually a lack of unnecessary fluorescence. However, regardless of my aversion, the musky redolence of burning Nag Champa induced my inquisitiveness. A dense vibration of intention resonated here, as if the store cafe had a tale of personal transformation behind it, not some carefully crafted corporate story someone like me had been contracted to write. Troubadour Cafe and the small market attached to it had a purity to them.

Both were perfectly clean, like lovingly well kept, lived in but still hygienic houses, different from establishments with strictly kept business hours and chemically sanitized out of subconscious consumer being fear. The lighting and temperature were warm. Unlike the typical eye-widening, bright, stark, and frigid democracy supermarket, I had never been to a grocery store with a cafe,

let alone one with any kind of individual vibe. I began to find aspects of the space both delightful and fascinating. Faint pinkish amber glowed from what appeared to be chunks of minerals atop some of the wicker bistro tables and old-fashioned scone lights above the bar. I had to ask Zoe about the glowing chunks. 

"They're lamps!"  She then dropped one of her shoulders and grinned shyly, informing me that they were also a natural way to improve air quality. Zoe didn't get into it on that day regarding neutralizing ions and the effects of electronics, but she did add that Shakra had many of these lamps at his abode. He believed they boosted serotonin levels.

As if she could read my curious mind, "'They're not crystals,' she blurted. "'They're only salt.'" The ending upward inflection on her statement, I surmised as, an attempt to mask her initial defensiveness. I understood her intent in clarifying that for me, but it did make me question whether I understood what in the mineral kingdom qualified as crystals.  Surely we had never banned salt?  

There was another room that was a boutique bookstore making the market and cafe a triune. The bookstore carried strange books, exotic foods, and statues of peculiar deities rarely seen in Democracity. I had a vague awareness of these deities and not from a documentary.  The dancing deity had an almost intimate relationship with me. This is the one carved into the wooden lid of a special box intended for me before I was born.  In the bookstore and cafe, triangular rainbow flags were strewn about with words and languages I did not know.  The troubadour triune was a vibrating web of geometric mystery manifesting as images on candles, hanging as gifts, featured on cards and books. We were the only ones there, save some guy in the corner with a trench coat, a black pointy beard, and spectacles. He looked like a hybrid of a ninja, a thespian, and a magician.

Had we been anywhere else, I think I would have thought he looked out of place. However, this was the type of place you would half expect to see a person exactly like him. As if unnoticing of him, Zoe abruptly pointed to the window and eagerly declared, "you know you are in a good place when you see this sign." 

"See what?" I asked, still preoccupied with thoughts of the eccentric character eating in the corner, wondering if he were a potential aberration. 

"That spiral-like design in the window."

She was referring to a decal on the store window next to the red frame of the entrance door. It's a gratitude sign, she explained. I nodded my head initially to acknowledge her statement, but then I got a flash of memory. "Spirals," I responded whimsically, "I've been drawing them on birthday and holiday cards for years."

"Do you know why?" 

"What do you mean? It's just something I do." 

"You should look into that, she encouraged with her sweet smile. You never know what lessons might be waiting for you, especially, well, everything is symbolic. Everything, a teacher." 

Her words, this concept, morphed into invisible butterflies that fluttered my curiosity.  I didn't really know how I would go about doing what she suggested, but it was resolved, I will have to figure that out later. 

It was an interesting menu to me at the time. Meat and cheese substitutes?  Troubadour also made proud claims about filtered tap water, their own garden, and something called composting, which seemed particularly ludicrous and yet curiously appealing.  Zoe, perhaps, in tune with my overwhelming struggle, suggested a salad. 

"If I were you, I would get the kale Caesar," she recommended. 

"Fabulous. I've never had kale. What are you getting?" 

"The kale Caesar," she replied with two exaggerated blink eyelash flutters and a wide dimple- inducing smile.

"Fair enough, we'll make that two".  

But Zoe would end up ordering hers with a vegan-style dressing while I got mine with their regular, which seemed to me quite extraordinary as it touted many Laurels. Certified organic, certified GMO-free, certified RBGH-free milk from certified grass-fed cows. These were terms not widely used in Democracity at this time.

As we waited for our meal, I tried to scan the background, simultaneously keeping eye contact with Zoe.  Crystal prisms hung around the room on invisible fish wire like a school of chandelier pieces. Each piece hooked a morsel of my attention with their twinkling. The reflected light induced many musings.  What is this place?  Apparently, I didn't know my town as well as I thought. Obviously not. Cafe Troubadour was here and had been off my radar until now. It brought an awareness to the concept of comfort zones I did not know I harbored. Is my range so limited?  These thoughts would glint across my mind for maybe one, two, three, five,tops eight seconds until I realized I was in a daydream state. I had to funnel my thoughts back into the present moment as I had learned in productivity-related business books, refocus my attention, and listen to Zoe.