It’s really not that I do not want to write. Or that I no longer have anything to say. It’s just that before I know it, it’s been a month since I have last written. It always surprises me how quickly time is passing, because I keep thinking that it’s been just a week or two that I last posted here. We keep thinking that once we settle down life will become calmer and slower, because you know, the words “settle down” kind of implies that. But it’s such a lie. It doesn’t get calmer, but it doesn’t necessarily get crazier either. It gets blurrier. Before you know it, you don’t really know where your days go. They just go somewhere.

I should keep track now. Of the sips of coffee I take in the mornings, and the cookies I bake in the evenings and the flowers I water in the afternoons and the trails I hike on Saturdays and the books I manage to finish in a month (which, sadly, is a very low number). I must keep track or I will have nothing that’ll flash before my eyes when it all ends. I must remember the letter I wrote sitting at dining table this afternoon, and the lemon scented candle I lit this evening, and the friend I spoke to after ages, and the squirrels that came to the patio, and the little sparrows that crowded the street this afternoon eating god knows what on the ground (they even stopped traffic).

If there is anything I am learning, it’s this: If we don’t make conscious efforts to make our lives matter to ourselves, it won’t. It won’t matter to us and it wont matter to anyone else. We must hold on to moments we have, grasp on to life’s little joys while we can. Because if we don’t, we wont even know when a month has passed by, and then another, and then another until there are no more months left.

Sigh. I hope you are with me dear readers. Because I do hope that I write, and I do hope that I come back before the month is over.

This is literally a garage turned into a coffee shop. Unpaved floor, raw walls, peeled bricks, and a rotting, what once was, a fireplace. It even has its garage door in tact that they roll up in the summers. It's metal panes are replaced with glass so that we can see outside during the winters. Different coffee equipments line one wall, and vintage wooden furniture fills in the empty space in the middle. A shelf in the far corner has old vintage cameras lined on it. Perhaps the owner of the shop is fond of photography too. The couches on the far end by the brick wall are the oldest and the comfiest couches I have ever sat on. But I don't sit on the couches very often. Like a cat, I prefer sitting in the far corner of the shop with my back against the wall, the garage door to my side, and the entire coffee shop to my front.

There is an old map on the wall by the restroom, which looks like the map of South America? How in the world does South America fit into this picture? Oh, coffee beans. Right.

As I sip my beautifully crafted cappuccino, a man and a woman enter the shop holding hands, and a story begin to form in my head.   A story waiting to be told, right there.

Writers cannot mind their own business. We live for this kind of adventure. Everything is a story. Everything is worth exploring. Every. Single. Damn. Thing. Can you imagine having so much in your head? Not being able to control making stories out of everything? Seeing meaning behind every single piece of crap you lay your eyes on. Dissecting every relationship, carving out every face your memory can conjure. No wonder we are crazy.  Writers cannot be loyal to anything else but their art. There were so many times I was offered to write for money, but I couldn't do it. It felt as if I was cheating on my lover. Writing is not a job or a career. Authors are not made, they are born. Writers are crazy. The better the writer, the crazier she is. People develop a fascination with a writer they like. But you don't want to really get to know a writer. You can't really know a writer. Because a writer is not one  person.

Ironically, I look up and accidentally glance at the black and white banner by the counter, with the famous Steve Jobs quote: "Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs, the square holes, the ones who see things differently...."