When I go home, I can't make the coffee. Well, I can but no one else drinks it with me. I like my coffee strong and bitter. In Berkeley, I learned to appreciate my coffee dark roasted and brewed strong. I like Peet's coffee. I can take Peet's coffee with me when I go home or I can find comparably dark roasted coffees there and brew them. In the South, folks generally drink their coffee in a clearer state. You can see through the glass pots that the folks in diners use to pour coffee for you. I drank coffee like that when I lived in Florida. I remember having strongly brewed coffee and wondering how anyone could enjoy the bitter brew. Now, I wonder how people can endure the flavorless brew that passes for coffee in my home area.

It dawned on me that the loneliness I felt as I brewed coffee for myself in those mornings in Florida was like the loneliness I felt in general. Having a general sense of going things alone, perhaps occasionally encountering a kindred spirit and enjoying the loving indulgence of my family members, who don't fully fathom how different I am from the Drew that left there 7 1/2 years ago. I look similar and many of my core values are the same, but how I live those values has shifted. I've gotten used to a community of people who think similarly at times and disagree similarly, but in whose very presence I find tremendous comfort and support. I love Berkeley. I love that Kriss Worthington and Dona Spring are on the city council. I love talking about my concerns about the rise of International Corporatism as a new theology or principles for imperialism adn international governance. I love that I can walk around the corner from my house and go to a teach-in on globalization with leading thinkers and actors from around the globe talking about it with me and my neighbors. I appreciate being able to sit in a queer reading group discussing the work of Dorothy Allison with friends who are bisexual, lesbian and transgendered. And being able to talk about the same writings outside of the reading group with friends who get excited about her writing regardless of their sexual orientation.

While visiting Florida recently, I recall searching for a place to feel some connection with kindred thinkers. I remember finding Fuel Coffeehouse and reveling in their strong coffee, their open microphone poetry night, their acoustic open mike night and their ambiance of acceptance and embracing things that were different and out of the mainstream of the area. I also remember listening as a young, white sailor from a nuclear submarine passionately recited his poem lauding himself for transcending his white trash, trailer park roots and the "discrimination" and mistreatment he had suffered at the hands of African-Americans in his predominately black neighborhood and schools. I listened as he challenged African-Americans to follow his lead and do the same and as he chastened them for their self-indulgence and failure to rise above hardship like him. As the crowd in the coffeehouse erupted in applause and cheers, I noticed the presence of many with blue, or green or orange hair and tattoos and piercings and the only African-American in the place, a man of about 60 years of age sitting next to me. He quietly shook his head and looked down. I spoke to him and he told me that that guy reads that poem every couple of weeks always to the same reaction. He, the man sitting next to me, said that he was there to "preach the word of God" through his poetry not to try to change what couldn't be changed. I debated whether to answer the poem poetically and challengingly and I realized that I didn't want to invest my energy in a time and a place and direction where nothing could be changed. As the hubbub around the sailor receded, I approached him and expressed my appreciation for his passion and his poetry, but disagreement with his premise that his obstacles to be overcome were in anyway equivalent to the experience of African-Americans in Jacksonville. He turned away and commented to his friends about me giving him a hard time. They all glared and I fought my inclination to look away. I found refuge in the words of Ani DiFranco, whom I'd seen a night or two previously, "you know, i don't avert my eyes anymore." I fought to quell the rage in my arms, shoulders and chest. I fought my desire to challenge him in his self-congratulation for "rising above" his circumstance by becoming a part of a delivery vehicle for weapons of mass destruction, murder and global imperialism. Then I remembered that I too am a part of that nuclear submarine he rides around on writing his racist poetry. I returned to my seat and the man who had been seated next to me got up to read his poetry, an incoherent diatribe against the sin and fornication. Soon I left. I returned to the coffee house on many occasions. It never felt the same. It never felt safe. It was a place to be vigilant and to watch your back. I lost my ability to be fortified by the space.

This morning as I sat alone in my apartment in downtown Berkeley drinking my Peet's Holiday Blend, I felt so much less alone than I did in Florida. And I realized, I can't make the coffee when I go "home" without feeling horribly alone and alien.