Hello rockstars, 

I decided this week I’m going to do something new. In honor of my entire Instagram FYP being various poems, and in honor of Tay’s new album: The Tortured Poets Department, I decided once a day this week I’m going to pick a poem that’s been living rent-free in my head and write about it. For this, I have to channel all my 10th-grade English reading comprehension skills, but sadly there are no SparkNotes for these poems. So here is me, taking my shallow take on deep poems and hoping I can half-as-eloquently describe how these beautiful pieces of writing made me feel. 

Here’s day 1: 

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Coffee Date Physics by Jess Janz

“A man waits outside the coffee for someone important enough that it makes him shuffle his weight from one foot to the other. He tries to wait with his hands in his pockets. He tries to look nonchalant. Maybe he is counting to ten in his head.

I see him see her before I can see who is walking up to meet him. I don’t know any other way to describe the smile that takes over his whole body other than probably something to do with megawatts. Something to do with Electromagnetic Physics. Something to do with the way the moon holds onto the earth: with an avid devotion. He is the softest human on earth at this moment. His chest is a light beam. His eyes are warmer than the sun.

They are eager to jump right into all the stories they want to tell each other, but drinks must be ordered. They consider the elaborate pastry offerings (sesame croissants as big as a face) and decide on an artisanal blueberry muffin to go with their lattes. Their eye contact with each other is a force field that shuttles them into another dimension. As they take their seats, they launch into the delicate work of sharing themselves with each other. Then lean in close to be sure to not miss a single word. 

The human body, at rest, carries enough electricity to power a lightbulb. I’ve concluded with very scientific proof that these bodies, lighting each other up, could power this whole mountain town, an entire planet. I’ve concluded that it’s all of us falling in love all over the place that keeps the sky lit up. May we all do our part.”

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This poem combines my favorite things: coffee + romanticization of the mundane + incorporating physics into daily life. 

Now I’m no physicist, and when my brother reads this blog post he’ll be like “Didi…” (which means older sister in Hindi) challenging my supposed favorite interest in physics when I’m a total fraud and he’s the actual physics royalty of our family. Science and I don’t usually get along, but Physics I respect, because it’s all around us and it’s fascinating. But also I never get tired of listening to my brother explain to me with unmatched patience how complicated physics concepts work.

But more than physics, it’s the bubble for me. It’s the way that we act when we think no one is looking (the shuffling of our weight and the huge smile when something or someone we have been waiting for is finally here). It’s the way you can be so fixated on stories that someone is telling you that you feel like talking for hours and are hanging on their every word. It’s the way that there were probably 30 other people in that coffee shop, and these two didn’t care or notice any of them. And maybe there’s something to break them from their bubble, where they momentarily tune back into the outside world to pick up their coffee when they hear their name or step away to the restroom to wash the blueberry off their hands, but then they’ll rejoin the bubble and the rest of the world will get quiet. I love that bubble. 

First I need to sidestep about my sweet friend Divya. Before she left me (read in a very dramatic way) to pursue her dream of going to med school and becoming a doctor (which I’m obviously very supportive of) we used to spend most weekends at a local coffee shop and study/do work together, whether it was the MCAT/LSATs, applications to med/law school, or homework for said med/law school. Our coffee shop study days have largely quieted down because now she’s in rotations and is a fantastic almost-doctor, and I … well I have no real reason besides “I need my monitors,” which is really just an excuse at this point. But the main reason I haven’t revived my coffee shop studying days is that no one can match my coffee shop energy the way Divya can. We got the same type of coffee orders and pastries, we were always on the same wavelength for work, and we always took breaks at the same time… just like I said finding someone with the same museum energy as you is difficult, finding someone with the same coffee shop-study energy as you is really difficult, and I found that in my bff Divya. 

Here’s hoping we can get there again. But that’s all background, and now I’m going to embarrass Divya (sorry Divya), because we’re both massive overthinkers, and we’re deeply emotional Pisces (Happy Pisces season btw!). A few years ago we were video chatting and she was telling me that she was studying with someone new at a coffee shop, but then she said something that made me feel so seen, and I can’t even explain it correctly, so you’re going to read this and be like, oh my god sandhya you’re actually insane, but you know what, I’m going to try anyway. 

If I’m at a coffee shop with someone new, I’m very self-conscious about how I’m behaving – is my coffee properly placed, is there enough room on my side for my laptop, notebook, coffee, and water? What about my bag? Where do I set everything up so I can easily access the coffee? The coffee, by the way, is way too hot to drink right now, but I can’t open the lid because knowing me, I will knock it over and spill it all over my laptop, my notebook, my friend’s laptop, all over the table, on the ground, probably on my clothes. Then I have to go and deal with getting napkins and apologizing profusely to the baristas and saying, I’m sorry, I’m just a klutz, I will 100% clean it up. So to avoid that awkward encounter, I keep the coffee lid on and hope that enough steam and heat will come out from the little centimeter opening in the lid. But I want to drink the coffee because I don’t know what to do with my hands unless I’m holding a coffee, so I pick up the drink. But don’t forget, the drink is too hot to drink, and it’s really hot to hold, so then I put it down next to my laptop with the lid on. Then there are a few seconds where I’m on my laptop and I’m even comprehending what I’m doing on my laptop or the case that I’m reading because I’m overthinking this entire interaction. I’m once again thinking: “What do I do with my hands? Do they just sit in my lap doing nothing while I read this thing on my screen? I can’t even take notes because there’s no room on this table for my notebook.” So then I pick up my coffee one more time, but now I’m self-conscious about picking up and putting my coffee down so many times that I’m like “You have to pick one, Sandhya, everyone at this coffee shop is noticing how much you’re picking up and putting down your coffee, so stop making so much noise and moving around so much, you’re being embarrassing.” So now, I pick up the coffee again, and honestly, at this point, my hand is kind of burning because the coffee is so hot, but I can’t put the coffee down again, so instead I’m just going to keep holding it and I might be suffering, but at least I don’t look silly. (In case it wasn’t clear, no one at this coffee shop is overthinking or paying attention to me and how much I pick up and put down my coffee, except me). 

When Divya and I talked about this, I was like “Oh my god, she understands me” because anyone else would have been like “Sandhya literally wtf?” which to be fair, is my reaction to myself too. But I never felt self-conscious when I studied with Divya because we were just two friends vibing and doing work and drinking overly sweet seasonal lattes. To be fair, we had plenty of other awkward moments – there was this beautiful barista at our favorite coffee shop, and I swear Divya and I both forgot how to be humans when she was around, she had witchy powers, I swear. 

But that beautiful barista aside, when you’re with someone so comfortable that you don’t care about what other people are doing, or frankly, even notice other people, then you’re in the bubble, and that’s the best position to be in. When you’re at dinner and you keep forgetting to look at the menu because you’re too busy having fun, and you know you’re annoying the waiter because he keeps coming back to ask you “if you’re ready” but you’ve been too busy laughing to even open and see what appetizers to share or entrees to get. When you’re at a bar with someone whose company you love and you’re so deep in conversation that it feels like time has actually stopped and there is no one else in the crowded bar with you, and the only time you come back to reality is when the bartender asks if he can top your drink off. Or, when you’re at said coffee shop unable to breathe because you’re laughing so hard that you’re thinking “Does it get better than this?”

So maybe really, it’s the physics of happiness.

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Thank you for joining me in my first rent-free poem week. I also want to give special birthday shoutout to my friend Shivani!! Happy birthday beautiful! I hope you have an amazing dayy!!

Until next time!

xo

Sandhya

If you want to join me to do more rent-free poetry weeks or you want to join me while I go through my 28th year around the sun, then please click the follow or subscribe button! Feel free to connect with me through this platform, Twitter, my coffee and checkins Instagram, my podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, or Amazon Music, or email me at coffeeandcheckins@gmail.com! If you have any suggestions for topics or anything you’d like me to write about, please let me know🙂❤