Eu și ibricul, o poveste de amor

Dacă există ceva bine știut despre mine, de apropiați și nu doar, acel ceva e dragostea mea pentru cafea. Pe care am tendința să o beau în loc de apă, spre exasperarea generală, și care se face, musai, la ibric. Dar povestea începe, ca orice poveste de dragoste, cu mult timp în urmă, cu un ibric. Ibricul mamei de cafea, veșnic cu preț de un sfert de ceașcă de cafea pe fundul lui, pe lângă care mă învârteam periodic de când aveam vreo patru ani. Ibricul care parfuma toată bucătăria și anunța, alături de cântecul cocoșului și de soare, că începe o nouă zi. Ibricul care aduna în jurul lui femei la povești, și pe mine la ascultat. Pe atunci, mă alegeam doar cu mirosul, indiferent cât de insistentă aș fi fost.

Stând și observând, însă, am descoperit că sunt mai multe feluri în care îți poți bea cafeaua. O poți face așa cum o face, de când o știu, mama: faci cafeaua, o pui în cană, și te apuci de treabă. Mai meșterești, mai iei o gură, și uite așa ajungi să tragi de ea bună parte din zi. Sau, la polul opus, poți face cafeaua, o torni în cană și, așa cum l-am văzut întâi pe tata făcând, cât timp îți bei cafeaua, faci doar asta. Nimic altceva.

La început, relația mea cu cafeaua era una socială. Îmi luam o cafea de la tonomat în pauzele de la liceu, sau când chiuleam cu colegele de la vreo oră. Atunci deveneam, într-un fel, copii mai mici ale mamelor noastre, care-și beau cafeaua în bucătărie, din căni de porțelan, la povești. Noi o beam din pahare de plastic, în parc sau prin oraș, povestind, la fel ca adultele noastre, te-miri-ce. Cu timpul, am început să-mi beau cafeaua și acasă, cu mama, povestind fiecare câte ceva. Uitându-mă în urmă, nu mi-a plăcut niciodată să-mi beau cafeaua altfel decât stând locului. Mi se pare că fură din farmecul momentului, că-l grăbește. La mine cafeaua n-a avut niciodată statut de utilitate, doar de moft. De necesitate, într-un fel, psihică.

Îmi aduc aminte că, într-o zi de iarnă, cam gri, am intrat pentru prima oară într-o cafenea 5togo. Trecuse ceva timp de când se lansaseră, și tot zisesem că mă duc să văd ce e cu ei. După timp bun de stat la coadă pentru diferite hârtii, ieșind în zloata de afară, i-am zis mamei că eu am nevoie de o cafea. Erau, întâmplător, chiar în drumul nostru. Contrastul dintre design-ul luminos, cu nuanțe pin-up, și griul general de afară, dintre zâmbetul de după tejghea și oamenii triști de afară, ne-au lăsat pe amândouă așa…ușor uimite. Iar de atunci, am tot trecut prin cafenelele lor de câte ori am fost prin preajmă, ca să vedem că atmosfera prietenoasă și cafeaua bună sunt constante peste tot.

Acum ceva timp, când deja aveam ibricul meu de aramă bine împământenit pe hota din bucătărie, iar oamenii din jur păreau să se fi resemnat cu cantitățile de cafea pe care le beau, primesc un mesaj care zicea așa: Bună!

Dana de la 5to go here

Am remarcat că în ultima vreme ne vizitezi des si ne bucurăm că #5togo se numără printre cafenelele tale preferate.

Am vrea să te avem mai aproape de noi și să faci parte dintr-o comunitate restrânsă de prieteni ai 5 to go. Astfel, am vrea să îți oferim un kit complet de cafea si accesorii pentru prepararea noului produs din meniul 5 to go, și anume cafeaua la IBRIK.

Prepararea cafelei la IBRIK reprezintă o experiență pe care mulți dintre noi poate am uitat-o și ne dorim sa o redescoperim împreună. Ne-ar bucura să vedem fotografii sau stories cu creativitatea, spontaneitatea și #experientaTAIbrik.”

Moment în care mintea mea s-a întors în timp, la unul dintre cursurile de Cultură Materială, în care Vintilă ne spunea, așa cum doar el știa s-o facă, despre cum economia bazată pe produs a început să fie înlocuită, tiptil, de o economie mai subtilă, dar nu mai puțin agresivă, bazată pe experiență. O treabă deloc inocentă, dat fiind că e ceva subiectiv și, deci, greu de evaluat: cum poți spune că experiența Celuilalt e, obiectiv vorbind, una proastă? Poți defini un produs prost, dar cum definești o experiență proastă? Am zâmbit amar, gândindu-mă că de acum felul lui de a explica treburi atât de complexe e o altă amintire savuroasă și, mânată de curiozitate, am acceptat invitația. Până la urmă, era vorba despre un brand care-mi place și de o inițiativă mișto, ce putea să iasă prost?

Trec zilele, și vine momentul în care primesc apel de la curier. Toată ziua stătusem de parcă urma să vină Moșul. Și, într-un fel, chiar venea. Până la urmă, singurul lucru de care eram sigură că o să fie parte din kit era cafeaua. Bun, și-n rest?

În rest, kit-ul meu de preparare a cafelei la ibric conținea un ibric roșu ca focul, să-mi surâdă norocul, o ceașcă de espresso cu motive populare românești și farfuriuță, două pahare-semnătură 5togo, și un bilețel simpatic, totul adunat într-o cutie accesorizată cu o glumiță care a prins pe internet (o altă semnătură a brandului e, de altfel, umorul).

Mi-am luat ibricul nou, ceașca, și am testat cafeaua în balcon, chiar de ziua bunicii și, cum credeam eu atunci, de ziua celei mai bune prietene. Primul lucru pe care l-am sesizat a fost cât de fin era măcinată cafeaua. Atât de fin, încât am trecut cu vederea faptul că, pentru gusturile mele, era un pic prea mult prăjită. Chiar și așa, e o cafea parfumată, cu o aromă blândă, ca de acasă. O cafea de băut în tihnă.

Pe mine experiența 5togo m-a purtat în timp, unul dintre paragrafele din bilețel întrebându-mă despre amintirile mele cu cafeaua la ibric, până în vremea copilăriei, când începutul școlii însemna umplutul unei găletușe cu măceșe, pe care s-o ducem cu noi în prima săptămână. Ca de obicei, mama își lua cana de cafea, pe mine de mână, găletușa, și plecam pe dealul din spatele casei la cules. Și ea mereu culegea mai mult și mai repede decât o făceam eu.

Aceeași experiență m-a făcut să beau mai puțină cafea. Nu pentru că o să mor de inimă, așa cum se miră apropiații că nu s-a întâmplat încă, ci pentru că micuța ceașcă e atât de simpatică încât nu-mi mai vine să mă întoc la cana mea veche, neagră, cu siguranță mai mare. Și tot ea mi-a arătat câtă creativitate se poate coagula în jurul unei cești mici de espresso: am văzut poze cu blănuri și perle, cu cărți, cu flori, lângă ceașca mică, decorată în stil popular.

Asta înseamnă, înainte de branduri, de cafea, sau de orice altceva, că oamenii au nevoie, încă, doar de-un prilej prin care să creeze ceva plăcut. De o scânteie. Și că sunt dispuși să accepte prilejul, indiferent de cine li-l oferă.

Și am mai descoperit ceva. Că sunt atâtea feluri de a îți bea cafeaua câți oameni pe lume, și că felul în care o faci evoluează în același ritm cu tine, ca om. Pentru mine cafeaua e momentul de meditație, de la momentul în care pun apa în ibric și până la ultima gură de cafea din ceașcă, prilej de autoanaliză și planificare, uneori de socializare. Un tabiet. Și, ca pe toate celelalte tabieturi ale mele, o iau foarte în serios. Poate de asta n-am încă espressor, sau măcar cafetieră. Pentru că simt nevoia pauzei pe care mi-o dă ritualul perparării cafelei, cu pașii lui mici și siguri, mereu aceiași.

Și pentru că, uneori, o cafea băută în tihnă sub cerul perfect albastru e o formă de terapie, de reconciliere a mea cu mine. Mai ales dacă în poală se culcușește o pisică, iar în căști se aude un pic de jazz.

Living the Ana life

WARNING: This article might be triggering if you are in recovery or suffering from an Eating Disorder. To be read with caution and a grain of salt.

Ana is a simple homegirl. She’s got good grades, she’s friendly and she loves fashion. Everybody loves her, loves the way she gets involved in humanitarian causes. Her smile and her jokes. But they don’t know that they’re in love with a lie. Because Ana is sick. You can say that it’s an invisible illness because you can’t see a thing, excepting the fact that she’s getting thinner and thinner with every single day. She is losing weight, and sometimes this could even be a good thing, but, you see, good things become bad too.

She’s a very good actress. You can’t tell a thing about her complicated relationship with her body and food, it’s hidden too well behind her smile. And even if you’d expect her life to be pink, it’s rather a deep, very deep shade of grey. As deep as her emotions. Ana is suffering from anorexia nervosa, an eating disorder. This could be translated in very low self-esteem, hating her body, being deeply ashamed with the way she looks and starving. Lots of starving. And let me not forget about her desperate search for love. For a mother to love, validate and cherish her. Because her own mother doesn’t know how to be there for her daughter. It’s a very big lie, her apparent balance. A lie hiding depression, anxiety, the fear of not being good enough for the cherished ones, and, above all, the fear of being fat. For Ana, every pound lost it’s a step taken on the path to happiness, every pound gained, a step taken on the path to death. There’s no in-between. You’ll tell me that I’m lying, that Ana is eating. And she does. But she’s also puking after. Drinking plenty of water and doing hard workouts. She’s punishing herself for daring to eat. Ana cares about two major things- getting thin and her grades. School is important to her, she wants to be the best. She wants to impress, to be the best in her future career. But she also wants to be as thin as humanly possible, no matter the costs. She forgot how genuine joy feels like, and her life became exclusively about calories. Nothing else matters for Ana.

I told you that she hates her body and having to eat, but there’s more than just that. For her, food is something with whom she’s deeply bonded. Food brings her peace, joy, guilt and shame, punishment at the gym and puking at home. Because every single Ana knows that you don’t miss that particular food, but the taste of it. Because every single Ana girl knows that every pound she’s losing is not one step closer to happiness and fulfillment, but another cry for help. For love and attention. She’s sick, but there are days when she’d do anything to fall in love with life again. To stop counting calories, pounds, diets which didn’t work out for her, or how close she is from her almost-deadly-thin weight goal. Because she has to be goals- body goals, lifestyle goals, family goals. And she’s nothing but damaged, and she knows it better than any of us does or ever will… But she’s trying. She’s trying so hard to live up to her high, self-imposed standards.

There are days when she makes it- she’s respecting the diet, the workout schedule, she gets high grades and manages to somehow trick everyone around her to think that she’s fine, everything while she drops pound by pound, getting thinner and thinner. And there are the days. The days when she’s binge-eating, gaining weight, skipping a workout, losing focus and getting bad grades. The days that remind her that, no matter what she’s doing, she just won’t be enough. Not tall enough, not pretty enough, not smart enough, not sexy enough, not thin enough…not good enough. Because, at the end of the day, this is all about- about being good enough. At what costs? Irrelevant, they’re not important, since no one knows about them. As long as it looks natural, it doesn’t matter how horrible it feels, how strange, how bizarre. Ana is needy. She needs every single bit of love and attention that she could receive, but you shouldn’t expect anything in return, and not because she’s selfish, but she can’t. Her emotions are compulsive, superficial, she’s not able to authentically love someone. And you can’t blame her for not having anyone around able to teach her how to share the love and good vibes with the others. Her life is movie script-worthy, but the beginning of the whole story was an enormous cliché- everything started with Ana being bullied.

Yes, I know, it seems so little. But it really isn’t. Everything started at school, with a colleague screaming Hey, fattie, come here, my friend wants to meet you!. They’ve laughed, but she left, and a question stayed with her: Am I really fat?. She gets home, goes to the mirror and she starts analyzing herself. She’s noticing that she really has some extra-pounds, but she won’t say that’s because of puberty, no, it’s all her fault. She’s eating way too much and way too unhealthy, and that has to change. Now. And it does.

Everything starts with her first date with a diet forum, where she’s gonna meet her Ana best friend which will give her valuable tips and tricks about how to lose weight fast while pretending you’re alright and fooling everybody around you. Losing weight feels so. fuckin’. good. She gets more confidence in herself, becomes more popular, can wear everything she wants to wear.

But nothing’s ever built to last. The lost pounds are coming back. She’s having her first major depressive episode. She’s not getting it- what happened, what was she doing wrong? So she’s starting to binge-eat. To have reported cheat-days, weeks, months. Her body looks worse than before, she’s fatter, no one likes her, she can’t be as trendy as her classmates anymore. She’s a fat, ugly, unpopular girl. Being smart it’s not helpful, but at least thanks to God that she’s not stupid as well. This is how she starts to look for Pro-Ana websites, blogs, Tumblr accounts…whatever works, at this point. She’s meeting new Ana girls, with more experience than she and she start learning. In the beginning, about the aliments- how many calories has each one of them, which are allowed and which are totally banned, which should be her daily calorie consumption in order to get thinner again. In the meantime, as she starts binge-eating again, being weak in front of her cravings again, she starts looking for more advanced things. How to artificially produce her vomit, how to make it look like you have just finished eating, but not eat anything at all. How to eat three cupcakes now and then starve for two days, just because she was craving them. How being fat feels like, because fatness isn’t only a fact, a trait that you have or have not. It’s a feeling. It’s feeling like you’ll never be like them, that girl squad that’s so thin, beautiful and trendy while it’s eating KFC on a daily basis, how she will never have as many people dying to be her best friends, that many beautiful, last-Instagram-trend clothes, that many apparently perfect boys wanting them. It’s about becoming a social no-no. About feeling ugly, feeling unuseful, feeling rejected. Reportedly rejected. So you get sick of it and try to change it, and you make it, but…

This is how things work. Especially when you’re a teenager trying to find herself in a visual society. This is how things work when you’re a young girl losing a big amount of weight, as well. There are a lot of psychological traps that no one tells you about. No one will tell you that you lose weight faster than you get used to the changes. Or that you try to look at least close to the girls on social media which have an army behind those flawless looks. And some good photo editors, too.

This is a common story. It is a part of my own story, but also of my close friends. It affects young men and women from all over the world. And it has so many forms of manifestation that you can’t even put a finger on it on its early stages.

When you lose weight, when you lose big amounts of weight, things get to happen that no one teaches you about. You don’t get told, for example, the fact that you will, at a certain point, feel like your body makes space for a new, stranger one, hidden inside of it. Somehow, it is a psychological metaphor of blooming, to explain it somehow.

No one will tell you that you will have mixed feelings about your body, either. That you will love feeling your bones when you dress up, or that you’ll feel insecure about being looked at on the street. You won’t be told about the joy felt when you’ll randomly notice in the mirror, one morning, that your collarbone is visible. The collarbone is the consolation prize of any Ana girl because it is the first bone to show up. No one will tell you that, one day, the feeling of your bones under your fingertips will be the synonym for accomplishment. Or that your close ones telling you that they’re proud of you for losing weight will put pressure on you to get rid of the rest of the weight quicker. Because being admired for the way you look is a newly encountered, addictive feeling.

And they won’t talk to you about these things not because they don’t want to, but because they don’t know how to. Some don’t even know that this is an actual need to be met in the weight-loss process. The only people that made me aware of all these things were my Ana friends. They warned me that I am becoming one of them and that I could be the perfect Ana. Actually, I could’ve turned into an Ana girl and no one would’ve suspected a thing, because, as they’ve told me if you become anorexic when you’re already thin, you’re sick, but if you become anorexic when you’re overweight, then you’re a success story. This is crossing my mind even today, whenever I think about my weight-loss journey. Because it is a long, possibly dangerous journey, even lethal for some. But it’s also rewarding.

I’ve managed to save my friends by loving them and always being there for them. By teaching them that their best will always be enough. That if somebody is conditioning them by telling them that they will be loved only as long as they do this or that, they don’t need that person’s love. No matter how much they care for that person or want it in their lives. I’ve also encouraged them to seek help, to go in therapy. I’ve learned a lot by working with them and helping them become the wonderful young girls they currently are. I’ve documented on the eating disorders spectrum, learned how to help them and how to help myself.

But if I was to name what I know about this now, I’d say that Ana is not a disease of a body, but a universe trapped inside of a human body. An imbalance misleading the vulnerable ones towards a fake perfection.

And if I want you to know something, on the Eating Disorders Awareness Week, it’s just that you have to pay attention to what happens around you. Seriously, that’s all that it takes. Pay attention to the girl that lost a big amount of weight all of a sudden. To the girl that has always just finished eating when it’s invited to take the dinner or lunch in town.

Take her for a walk, encourage her to talk. Or him, for that matter of fact, as I’ve seen plenty of boys developing eating disorders as well. Talk, let them know that you’re there, ready to listen without judgment. Read about it, learn to recognize the signs, and be always ready to show them their best sides, as they often forget about them in their quest for perfection.

Because this is how Ana works her deadly magic: firstly, it makes you feel unworthy of appreciation and love, and then, it isolates you from all the loved ones. It is not just about the person battling the disorder, is also about everyone else who loves her and cares for her. Ana hurts and drags down everyone around the victim.

And for you, for all the people that managed to seek help and are now in recovery, you have all my love, admiration and support. You’re some different kind of rockstars, so make your voices heard and tell your stories exactly as they were. No matter if you’re a teen, an adult or even close to the old ages, your story will help. Your story will heal. Will let the young ones, the confused ones, the ones that have lost faith know that there’s nothing lost forever.

Because it might be true that nothing tastes as good as skinny feels, but it is also true that happines is so, so much more than a number on a scale. And if you want to discover it, giving up on caring about that number is the best start you could possibly have. Your beauty is not a number, and your intelligence is not your grade.

It is, somehow, only one number that really counts: the number of people that you’ve made to smile, the number of people that you brought joy to, even for five minutes. And that is not depending on how much you weigh, not even a bit, not at all. So get yourself together, and put the guilt, the shame and the good enough stuff in a box. Tomorrow is a brand new day, the sun will shine, and you will try again, totally aware of the fact that small steps are still steps taken forward.

Why 2020 won’t be your year either, and why you shouldn’t regret it

It’s the most wonderful time of the year…part two. Now, with retrospectives in the past year, accomplishments and failures. And, of course, goal-setting for the next year. Because, of course, a new year brings a new me, ain’t it? A new and better version of one’s self, a version which is, in the first place, balanced.

And this is where everything starts to go down,  the moment that we tend to see reaching a mental state of balance in the same way we see obtaining some material thing: a clear path to follow, with a finish line to be reached and the object in our possession A one time thing. This is how another not-so-great year begins. By living trapped with a wrong mindset.

If you scroll around Social Media in this period, you’ll see that there’s an epidemic of posts about how the next year will be about myself. About becoming a better version of whoever posted that. And it’s a wonderful thing, but  this is not just theory.

Apparently small things, like going to bed earlier, procrastinating less, living a healthier and more meaningful life are all transformed into glittery goals. Which is a good, a wonderful thing, but it’s not making it past the first week of the new year. And there’s a good reason why.

Most of us live chaotic, fast-forward lives. We are constantly under pressure, constantly trying to achieve more and more in every sphere of our lives. We try to have both the perfect career and the perfect personal life, the perfect body and the delicious meals with our loved ones. And this, sooner or later, brings everyone into a state pretty close to survival mode. Or, if you’re not that lucky, burnout.

This is where the so-called failure begins. Do you know that Internet saying You can’t do epic things with basic people? Well, the same thing applies to life changes. You can’t evolve into a better person if you’re all caught up into survival mode. Because becoming a better person, even if that means that you’ll cut the junk food and sleep earlier, requires time, effort put into it and consistency. Or, if you have a bad time, if your resources are channeled into survival this period with minimum damage, evolution becomes a glittery dream.

Even if it’s uncomfortable, it is also true. But even if it’s true, this should not be an excuse for having bad behaviors that keep us from becoming the better versions which we know are possible.

Yes, we don’t have to give up trying to achieve something we know would be helpful, but we should not give into the social pressure of having a resolutions list either. We should, instead, try to be more introspective, to find out more about ourselves, and to gain a better understanding of how the  human mind and emotions work.

We should begin this and every year with the understanding of the fact that balance can be solid this week, and to vanish away the next one. And, above all, we shouldn’t judge anyone.

If your only goal for the next year is to know more about yourself, it’s great. If your biggest accomplishment of the last year was to discover coping mechanisms that don’t involve self-destructive behaviours and are really effective, you’re doing a fabulous job. If your goal is getting professional care for your mental health, this is absolutely wonderful as well.

As long as they make sense to you, your achievements and your goals should not be explained to anyone else. Somehow, though, if you really, really want to see those goals becoming reality, you should begin by breaking them into tiny pieces. This is one effective way of getting things done, as I will have  some veggies instead of fries for lunch today is way less scarier than Since today, I’m gonna have a healthy diet. And also far easier to accomplish.

Another thing to be considered is the fact that life ain’t linear. Neither life or progress are. There will be periods when everything will go according to plan, and periods when you couldn’t seem to be at greater distance of your goals. But this is part of the journey called life as well.

Even if the self-help literature and speakers tend to make individual evolution seem to be a piece of cake, it is, actually, more like building a house. It takes a huge amount of resources, time, patience and resilience. And, mostly, a very good memory, to remember the ups of the process and why have you started to do that in the first place.

But one of the most important reasons of not meeting the goals, is not the lack of consistency, or of discipline, or the desire of meeting them. No. One of the main reasons is that, often enough, evolution requires outside help. It might be a teacher, a mentor, a therapist or somebody that you genuinely and deeply admire. It might be your mom, or your little brother, this is not important. What matters, instead, is that some people do have this power, of making us trust ourselves a little more and judge ourselves a little less at the end of the day. These are our everyday heroes, which keep us going, and for which we should all be grateful.

And, no, you’re not a failure if you didn’t achieve all of your goals at the end of the year. As big or as small, progress is progress, and every step taken in the right direction matters. Make this journey feel as personal as it actually is, and do your best, daily, without emotional charge such as guilt, shame or envy.

The shortest recipe for a good year will always begin with a day, so find beauty in every day the little things to be grateful about. Because, at the end of the day, what fuels growth is the smile and the goodness that we manage to find in every day, day after day.