It’s that time of year again. The time of year when Starbucks, like so many other corporate entities, deck their halls with all things red and white and green and glistening. That time of year when I write about aesthetic and memory.
When I write about Krystina.
I’m not going to write about Christianity or outrage or anger (though I have many thoughts on the first, Katherine writes a pretty goddamn good post on the second, and last year’s post on this topic certainly had a decent dose of the third).
But I am going to write, very briefly, about those red cups.
I hear some people are unhappy with their plainness this year. Maybe it was nearly every corner of the internet posting about it that prepared me, this year, for Starbucks’ holiday makeover. I knew it was coming, this time. I knew Starbucks was going to look like the inside of a candy cane’s daydream. I knew there were going to be the snowflakes, the garlands, the puffy snowmen statues hiding between muffins in the pastry display.
I knew Starbucks was going to look like it did the last time I saw Krystina alive.
She was a creature of past and possibility. Of hurt and healing peeled back and replaced too many times. Of anger and outrage. Of all things red and glistening.
I think she would have appreciated the plainness of Starbucks’ holiday cups this year. Definitely would’ve laughed at the “controversy” they caused. She likely would’ve doodled on the cups. Or maybe just etched the word “fuck” all over them with the blunt end of a dying pen. Equally probable.
I appreciate the blankness, this year. Not because of some grand ideological viewpoint, but because I just do. For me, the unadorned red cups feel like a blank slate. Like catching my breath. Like possibility.
I’ve spent the past year shedding the skins of old lives and donning the trappings of new ones. (Blue hair may be up next, folks. I may also be moving to Scotland. Fair warning.) I’ve spent months running from ghosts and exorcising demons. Washing memories off the walls of my existence. Moving on.
I sat in Starbucks today, clutching my blessedly blank red cup and staring at the decorations and listening to the hum in the air of the other lives moving around me.
It didn’t hurt, this time around.
Quill Aquiver 