Traveling Coffee Girl

  • Do It Afraid

    Nathan Barreras

    Fear sustains me. I am an anxious mess of convoluted worries and scattered priorities, sprinkled on a heaping mound of tangled nerves, and plated beside a trauma en cocotte. Fear has been the guiding motivator in my life for several years now, and my nervous system is requesting a sabbatical. Fortunately, I’ve been lucky enough to travel to magnificent places, try outlandish foods, and participate in inspiring spectacles that changed the lives of hundreds. I’ve eaten sun-dried river shrimp in an isolated village in Nicaragua, infiltrated the gated aquifer in Oaxaca wherein Nacho Libre first encountered his sidekick, Eskeleto, and slurped down raw quail eggs on the banks of the Payette Lake. I’ve fled from javelina and law enforcement while riding a bike, been held-up at gunpoint, rode in a malfunctioning plane over a mountain to the only lake on the planet with fresh water sharks, and buried myself alive.

    Oaxaca, MX

    I imagine you and I drinking our favorite coffees and talking at a table with our favorite song bumping lightly in the background. We’ve been discussing our dreams and goals for 2026. I just rattled off the bonkers list above, and you’d shake your head at me.

    “How, Nate?” you would ask. “How do I put aside my fear and do the hard thing?” I’d snort and shrug. My face would twist into an expression of comical uncertainty.

    “I don’t know,” I’d confess. “I just do it afraid.” Ultimately, you’d be unsatisfied with that answer, but it’s the truth.

    Hot take: fear is underrated. Fear is the great innate motivator for all self-care decisions. We fill up our gas tank before a trip, so we aren’t stranded in the high desert in July. We pack an extra change of clothes “just in case” we are delayed a day or drop ceviche on our white linen pants. We pay for better insurance, pursue preventative care, and even choose to watch the news, all in the name of being prepared for “the worst” in all its ambiguity. Fear keeps us from high-fiving rattlesnakes and from sitting on splintery logs. Unfortunately, fear also prevents us from progressing.

    Oaxaca, MX

    Since I was a tiny Tucson tyke, I’d always dreamed of writing a book and becoming a published author. I’d started a bajillion stories and some even got shut down. In August 2023, I began typing up the draft of a manuscript that I had every intention of publishing. It was a vulnerable and dramatic tale of families struggling to survive the Wild West, and I poured my soul into the characters. Some weeks, when I couldn’t think of what to write, I felt it: fear. What if I’m actually a bad writer? What if this story makes people angry? What if I never finish and just quit? What if I never achieve my dream? It was sobering and paralyzing. In the fight-flight-or-freeze scenario, I had become a fainting goat, bouncing down a flight of stairs.

    I believe that every creature on Earth is born with their most important survival skill; minutes after birth, giraffes can stand and run; baby vipers can kill a man with a single bite; baby turtles complete an epic race to the sea moments after they’ve hatched. Human beings are no different. While we may lack flippers, venom, and those little knobby-things giraffes have, infant humans have their single most important survival skill at their disposal: they can call for help. Humans are social beasts, and our greatest power is each other. When I was afraid, I asked someone to help.

    I asked my brother to help me edit my manuscript. I told him my fears, gave him context, and he agreed to do his best. When I was in Nicaragua, I had my traveler-guru sister with me. When I was breaking rules in Mexico, I had my local besties pressuring me the whole time. I never would have taken those quail egg shots unless I was sharing one with my wife. I’ve often heard how fear always precedes bravery, and how bravery is accomplished by the overcoming of fear, but maybe the bravest thing you can muster is to tell someone you’re afraid. There’s something empowering about being afraid with someone else.

    If you’re waiting for the moment you feel ready or postponing a milestone for fear of failure, you’ve chosen the path of the popsicle. Find a fearful friend to carry you, like a frightened Scooby and Shaggy. Reach out a clammy, trembling hand and tell someone how afraid you are of not taking the next step. Don’t wait to feel brave; do it afraid.

    What does “doing it afraid” look like for you? Share your thoughts in the comments below and support writing like this through Buy Me a Coffee.

  • My Love Letter to Oregon

    Marie Magoch

    “You were already more beautiful than anything I dared to dream. In our years apart, my imaginings did their best to improve your perfection. At night, your face was forever behind my eyes. And now I see that that vision who kept me company in my loneliness was a hag compared to the beauty now before me.”

    These were the words of Westley in William Goldberg’s The Princess Bride when he saw Princess Buttercup after five years apart. Few quotes so perfectly encapsulate my feelings each time I return to Oregon. I’ve visited this awe-inspiring state five times in the last ten years, and each time, it’s a new experience. Each time I want to stay. Each time, leaving feels like heartbreak, and I feel silly crying during take-off.

    It’s been three years since my last time back; three years since I’ve seen the world in amazing technicolor, stood in the warmth of the waters at Sunset Bay, seen a cranberry bog, or walked through the radiant gardens of Shore Acres.

    My last day in Oregon was the morning of August 27, 2023. Before returning my rental car to the Rogue Valley Airport, I took one more detour down Hwy 99 so I could take the long route from Central Point to Ashland. Ashland, Oregon has always been my magical playground. That morning, it became its own love letter.

    Walking through Lithia Park that morning, beneath the lingering haze from the California fires, I walked to the pond and realized– I needed coffee. Unlike my first visit to Ashland in 2016, I was simultaneously much more adventurous and a smidgen more lazy. I had only walked a block before I discovered the tiny Handlebar Bike and Coffee Shop with its scrumptious selection of sweeties, coffee, and a community art wall.

    Walking back through Lithia Park with a coffee in hand, I heard music. At first, I couldn’t find the source. Following a path through the park felt like following the sound of my life’s soundtrack, and I wanted to know what the next scene would look like. At the end of the path sat a man wearing a red hat, playing a cello. This was the defining moment when I not only fell in love with the sound of the cello, but also with the spiritual joy of impromptu live music. His name was Daniel Austin Sperry. The song he played I remembered best was Butter Yellow Lullaby Dance for Carol. He said it was a song he wrote for a lady who liked to paint every home she lived in yellow.

    “I’m done with the game, the Queen of Hearts called,
    Crying for past illusion’s abyss
    Of a home of butter yellow
    And memories not her own.
    Life turned its corner
    Once the strings were cut.
    A card of music was turned;
    The Ace wore red
    While drinking from a turquoise cup.
    The trees coughed and whispered their applause.”

    As Daniel played, I scrawled out some poetic nonsense that only I would understand. Reading it now, I captured a description of the moment in all its ephemeral sanctity.

    That moment was a encapsulated everything I love about Oregon; the literature-inspired architecture of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival overlooking the park, the colorful yoga mats waiting for the morning class as a student who looked like Gandalf warmed up nearby, a doe and her fawn strolling along the lawn and past the stores as if going school shopping, an outdoor market set up nearby with artists who enjoy taking a moment to share about their creative journeys and beam with happiness when their work was discovered and cherished.

    Oregon is where I first noticed the main character vibes of the world. A place where the scenery and atmosphere flirt with the senses, making the moment feel like a movie and the main character (you) feel alive. It’s beautiful and tragic all at once, fulfilling and fleeting.

    This is my love letter to you, Oregon. We’ll be together soon.

    If this love letter spoke to you, you can help support the journey through Buy Me a Coffee.

    ~Miss Marie

  • It’s the Time of Year to Slow Down

    Marie Magoch

    It’s New Year’s Day, 2026. I am sitting on a cold, mist-soaked bench on a gray and rainy day on the silent beach of Goldwater Lake. A duck is sitting motionless in the center of the water. The mountain valley usually visible from here is draped in a sleepy white blanket of fog. I can see my breath, and it reminds me to put on my gloves. It was an impulse decision. It was my waking thought after five and a half hours of sleep. It was the persistent idea that nagged at me the entirety of my morning yoga practice. It was the thought that convinced me breakfast could wait until late morning: I really wanted my first writing of the new year to be beside a lake. So, I’m sitting here beside a lake on a foggy Thursday morning contemplating life exactly like the duck in the middle of the lake.

    I want one experience each day that reminds me I am alive. It doesn’t have to be extravagant, life-affirming, or near-death to be an “experience.” I want to keep promises broken to my younger self and create memories that become stories. Something the senses can enjoy. Something that brings a noticeable feeling of peace. Something that makes me understand more. This misty morning writing session by Goldwater Lake is my January-1 moment. Normally, I would have taken a walk along the trail around the lake or found a spot among the trees to overlook the vista. Today, I am sitting front-and-center on a cold, wet, adirondack bench. The last time I walked these shores it was Spring, and I realized I needed this reminder to slow down and take a moment to breathe and enjoy the quiet.

    The hardest thing for me is making my brain slow down. No, it’s not the daily coffee. The coffee actually helps me keep up. In a ridiculously busy and info-saturated world of technology, drama, and breaking news, we need an escape to enjoy the quiet, to take time to focus on focusing. Is it any wonder that people take up hiking as a way to walk away from the noise and enjoy nature, even for just a moment? That has to be indicative of something. 

    “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” – Henry David Thoreau, Walden (1854)

    I need this moment to calm my racing mind, to breathe. The bees buzzing through my head are quiet for once, and I get five seconds without extra input. Just this moment. That’s my focus for this year, slowing down and enjoying each experience. That includes waking up a little earlier to experience more of the day.

    Living in survival-mode made my brain as foggy as this lake and its pine laden hills. The past few years have been more a furious blur of events and countdowns rather than experiencing the universe’s magic around me. It’s the difference between enjoying a nice meal and blending a nice meal into a smoothie for efficiency. The mind learns and grows using all five of our innate senses, and busy minds need a moment to enjoy the sensations happening right now, to bask in the fullness of this moment. Sometimes, that requires removing yourself from all the places your mind inhabits, and focus on focusing.

    Take your moment. Breathe, observe, notice, listen, bask, enjoy.


    Mornings like this are fueled by coffee. Support the journey through Buy Me a Coffee.