THE NICARAGUA VHS
Coffee and life and what-ifs.
There’s a video I saw maybe five years ago. My aunt and uncle showed it to me on a trip back east, one of my first ever solo trips. It was late evening, we were all a few glasses of wine deep, everything spinning a little. My uncle walked over to a dusty crate in the corner of the room and pulled out an old VHS, like you do when you’re drunk, told me he wanted to show me a few highlights from their travels over the years.
He slid the rickety old thing into the VHS player and the video crackled to life on the screen, all fucked-up and cotton-fuzzy. Once I get my bearings—mind you, I was drunk—I see the video’s taken on someone’s patio in the jungle. My aunt and uncle are sipping coffee. Nicaraguan roast, he tells me. Two-week vacation almost immediately after they’d met. It’s morning, but just barely: the rest of the jungle doesn’t know it yet. And after a couple minutes the birds start singing, my aunt and uncle sitting there, slow-sipping Nicaraguan coffee, laughing. My uncle leans in towards my aunt and her lips meet his for just a second. Then back to coffee, back to jungle, back to morning, back to birds. The sun is really coming up now, and they’re just sitting there. Like that. In love.
***
“Isn’t it a beautiful morning? Oh, hold on, do you have anything to drink?”
***
Maybe two years after I saw that video I broke up with my longtime girlfriend. We’d met back in high school when neither of us knew what love was, and I think we each learned in our own way—but still not nearly enough. It was during one of those post-breakup walks that year in the autumn, ruminating on everything, that I remembered the video. I still don’t know why I remembered it then, I just did.
I thought about the birdsong coming all warbled through the VHS, of them sitting there on the deck, and I realized how foreign it all was. I’d had other things, but not that. And I wanted that.
***
“Here, try this one. No, no, trust me. Just take a sip. It’s my favorite—it’s magical.”
***
My first real trip abroad came the summer after high school. I’d been to the UK with my parents as a child to visit some long-lost relative, but the summer after high school was—for all intents and purposes—my first time. I landed in Greece with the same nervous energy you might get before an important test or a first kiss or a job interview. Salty air, burnt skin, lots of food and lots of parties and lots of girls and lots of fun were the colors on the canvas that year.
But all summers end, and by the end of this one I remember one night sat on a new friend’s rooftop in Santorini high, drunk, almost relaxed. But not quite.
***
“I still can’t believe it’s your first time here. And that this is our first trip together. I can’t believe a lot of things, really. But hold on, before we get off-topic… How do you like the coffee?”
***
I went through half a dozen girlfriends during college. And normal friends, too. It’s harder to hang onto the former but hanging onto anyone is difficult, I found out. I also found out that when you live with people is when you really bring out their demons—and frankly, they’re better left in Hell. So I graduated in engineering, a hell of a career path I wanted nothing to do with, and fell in with a group of artists in Missoula. I know, it’s not the place you’d expect to fall in with a group of artists.
It took a few more girlfriends and a few more friends before I figured out artists weren’t really my thing. Nobody was my thing.
***
“I love your eyes. Sorry, I know I’ve said it a million times since last month. But I love your eyes. Anyway. Aren’t the birds pretty? I wonder what they’re singing. Any guesses?”
***
Well, I did get back into engineering after all of it, found a shipping startup, worked there for a couple of years. When I was 27 I had more money than I know what to do with: the company got acquired, all of the core team left, took a trip to the Bahamas, which was—of course—filled with drama but nobody gave a fuck because we’d all just become set for life.
So I moved to London, to Brussels, to Madrid, to Tokyo. I’m back in Madrid now. Making friends hasn’t been easy. Sometimes I think back to those friends in elementary, middle school, high school. Even early college. How did I do it back then? Felt like you just fell in with people. One day you were doing math homework, the next the two of you—or the whole damn friend group—had gunned it to nowhere, to anywhere, on your bikes and all you could do was count down the days to summer. Felt like that with relationships, too. It had been a while.
Anyway, it’s just like they told me. I was set for life. Why didn’t it feel that way?
***
“God, that sun is actually kind of warm when it hits you. Feels good, though. Hey, any ideas for dinner? I was thinking we hit that spot in town that serves those rice and beans and plantains and the best goddamn cocktails you’ll ever drink. Good break from coffee. What do you think?”
***
Monica and I have been together four years now. I won’t lie to you: not all of it’s been easy. Fuck, most of it hasn’t been easy. But this morning I can see Oliver—I didn’t choose the name—playing with his building blocks across the room, morning sunlight brushing his whole face golden. He’s laughing, turns to me, throws one of the blocks at me. It flies up maybe two feet in the air and lands down close to his feet. I think it’s an invitation to come play. I scold him and tell him not to throw building blocks—but I don’t really give a shit and, honestly, I think he can tell.
Look, it hasn’t been easy with Oliver either, but I don’t regret it. Or him. Or Monica. Last night we put on a documentary about coffee. They were in Nicaragua. It brought back the memories—the feelings, really—of that VHS from all those years ago. It’s silly now, thinking back on it. A vignette. A romanticization.
That’s not what I want. Not at all. It isn’t. It can’t be.
***
“Isn’t this perfect?”
***