The Floating Head at Fee Fee's Coffee House
On a ceramic coffee house counter in America, framed by a lap top computer, floats a Muslim woman’s head. Suddenly it screams “Fee Fee! Come! Fee Fee!” Like a Cheshire Cat from "Alice in Wonderland" Mama’s smiling face looks at you, floating thousands of miles away in the far East, and modestly arranges her burka. You really don't know what to say to Mama. Its all rather odd and embarrassingly. With your two legs and arms and a torso you would like to make her feel comfortable. But Mama's head knows no English. Anxiously she searches for her daughter within the confined distance of a lap top. She only stopped in through Skype to help direct on a Mediterranean recipe in the kitchen when she got stuck watching the door.
A bell rings and another young couple enters. Mama adjusts her veil to cover her hair as the young couple stares in amazement. Mama's floating head politely smiles back.
Behind her, thousands of miles away, a glimpse of her orderly home in the desert is displayed. Fee Fee runs up to the coffee house counter with her apron covered with flour to take the couple's order. She is eager to please and bubbling with conversation. No one acts as if anything is out of the ordinary...Mamas floating head smiles proudly at her daughters business then looks away within two countries at once.
Fee Fee often carries her mothers screened head in to the kitchen and sets her on a shelf close to the stove. Mama can supervise her cooking there and advise on ingredients to make authentic home land cooking. Mama gets lonely.
I find myself thinking, what if one day we could capture "essence"
I find myself thinking, what if one day we could capture the “essence” of a loved one that has died, and experience a warm moment together? What if like Fee Fee's Mama we could actually experience the warm qualities of a mother, father, sister, father or pet that we miss? Did man kind ever believe a day would come when we would cook together in the kitchen as one, while thousands of miles apart? We take it for granted every day now.
Will we in a similar way, some day, talk and interact with the “essence” of a loved one like a Star Wars hologram? These are the things that cross my mind as I blink and smile at Fee Fee and her Mom’s disembodied head on the lap top.
THURSDAY TURKISH COFFEE WITH MY SISTERS.
{left to right} Fee Fee, Ann Marie & Karen - Turkish Coffee Thursday
Every Thursday I have coffee with Fi Fi and Karen. It is a tradition. We sit in a sweet corner nook of Fee Fee's shop where a coffee couch and chair beckon invitingly for a snack with a friend. Sometimes Fee Fee brings out beautiful tiny china cups from her country. She has taught Karen and I how to read Turkish Coffee grounds, just as her Aunt from Turkey taught her to do. Much like tea leaf reading, you swish the bottom drops of coffee and pop your cup upside down on a napkin. The coffee grounds stick together more then tea leaves, but they still make symbols & shapes that capture the essence of your soul and personality. With a good imagination the sky is the limit for fun and intuition. I have had the privilege to meet Fi Fi's Mom's head as she smiles from the counter.
WHEN Fi Fi MET BARRACK O’BAMA
Fi Fi greeting Barrack Obama to Strom Lake, Iowa - 2007
When Barrack O Bama came to Iowa to speak by the lake, {before he was elected as President,}Fee Fee was given the privilege to meet him in person as a Turkish Coffee Host representative. I am sure Barrack O Bama would have been gracious to Fee Fee's Mama. I wonder what he would have said to her disembodied floating head on Fee Fee's coffee house counter?