My barista
at Arabica said something to me while making my cappuccino the other day that
gave me pause – I’d never thought of it before.
I had told
her my younger son got his 1st choice college acceptance letter –
what a great day, what a moment seeing that ear-to-ear smile, getting a warm
embrace from him and even an invitation to lunch to thank me for my help. Wow!
I guess
the “college” part prompted her to say she will get her kids drunk for their
first time! (How we went from “college”
to “drunk” so quickly was a fascinating commentary on our current society.) She feels it’s important to have her child
drunk in front of her where it’s “safe,” and it will “kind of take the edge off”
or the darkness of fascination off when it’s done with parents. She’s certainly not talking about “child” but
when they turn “young-adult.” She’s just
planning ahead since her kids aren’t close to college age. And she’s only talking once, not routinely. I see her point but that’s not my style. Now for the point of this blog post…
I told her
my older son (21) doesn’t drink, never has, and I honestly don’t think my
younger son (17) has. She said
immediately and matter-of-factly, “That’s because they’re creative. They don’t need to.” One of my sons is a musician/songwriter, the
other is an artist/animator heading to the Savannah College of Art & Design
in the fall, and my local barista knows this.
She then
elaborated that she was an “art kid” and said she didn’t drink until the age of
25 and that none of her “artsy” friends did either. She said that she and her friends thought, as
kids, that boring people had to drink to have fun. Fun people don’t need to do that. Creatives are inspired by everything so don’t
need an artificial substance to jazz them.
Wow. No idea if that’s true but
it surely is with my two creatives. Interesting
idea to just make us ponder…..
Art work by Ben Kalicky, drawn with a mouse
