elizabethlevett

“Mercy, I’m a criminal, Jesus, I’m the one…”

I’m a thief, a crook. I say this with shame and just a little pride. Once, when I was about seven or eight, I stole a whole dollar out of my mom’s purse to buy candy. We didn’t have candy around the house because my brother was diabetic, and my mom said it would rot our teeth. How I wished to have my own stash of Bit-o-Honeys and Sugar Babies just once when it wasn’t even Halloween. So, I did it. Having the necessary funds was thrilling. Nearly missing the school bus was not. It seems I was blinded by selection anxiety at the thought of being able to choose from so many options. The bus driver ratted me out to my parents. My mom’s anger was nothing next to my father’s disappointment. Clearly, it was a lousy idea, and seemed to signal the end of my career as a kleptomaniac. I went to confession, said the requisite Hail Mary’s, earned back the cash doing extra chores, and tried to stay on the straight and narrow.

Years later I was enjoying my freedom as a supposed adult and living in the city with a job and even a band. How cool was I to sit alone in the Cafe Tosca with a cappuccino!? I adored going to the many storied coffee houses of San Francisco in those days – the people, the atmosphere, the sophistication, the cappuccino cups and saucers – brown on the outside and white inside, and those cute spoons! Wouldn’t it be cool to have one in my kitchen, just for coffee? One like this little spoon? It wasn’t elaborate or fancy. Just the perfect size, the perfect shape. I licked off the foam and glanced around. (Act natural.) Who would notice, who would see? It was just one adorable little spoon. I got myself organized to leave as casually as possible and tossed it in my purse. I stole spoons from nearly every coffee house in North Beach – Vesuvio’s, the Café Trieste, the Savoy Tivoli, even Mario’s Bohemian. I still use all of them – just for coffee, oh, and maybe food for the cats.

I feel I should pause in my narrative just briefly to address what must seem a startling departure from the ethical on my part. Let me assure you, dear reader that, while I am not a moral relativist, I don’t think my spoon thefts amount to truly criminal behavior. Little spoons have not been a gateway to drug dealing or tax evasion. Besides, it’s not as though I’m going from café to café, town to town, with a satchel of stolen flatware. I think of it this way, in a life well lived there are hundreds, thousands of coffees enjoyed on any urban street and any coffee house worthy of the name has a budget for loss. A spoon here, a tiny butter dish there. It doesn’t amount to “a hill of beans in this crazy world.”

I thought I was alone in my spoon lifting – a unique sort of minor thief. It seemed for years that I was. Then I met Rosemary. I happened to be in L.A. for a few days and stopped into Figaro Bistrot for a snack and a quick cuppa when I noticed a woman about my age but way more interesting looking. Tall, gorgeous hair, and beautifully, if a touch eccentrically, dressed. She was joy embodied – with sparkling blue eyes. We exchanged smiles and went back to our café au lait. After a few minutes I noticed she was getting ready to leave, licking clean the classic, tiny spoon. Just like that, she glanced around casually and dropped it into her bag, catching my eye in the same moment. My mouth must have dropped open. As she passed my table she stopped and smiled. “Beauty is power; a smile is its sword!” she recited. Emily Dickinson. I couldn’t help but laugh. After that we just got to talking and found we had more in common than our larceny.

Rosemary is an artist, a musician, and a spoon thief. It’s as if she magnifies the fantasy of wild, artistic, and joyful living so many of us only dream of. She, it seems, has had the guts to make it all come true in her own way. I’ll never forget the first time I visited Rosemary’s home. The walls are covered with her paintings. Musical instruments are lined up in every corner and books adorn the tables. She is constantly creating — even the floors are decorated with her hand-painted designs. And her spoons! They’re everywhere. Along with the vases, sheet music, and a constant variety of creative works in progress. Rosemary makes my few spoons, and my courage look puny next to her extravagant collection and her bravado. It seems Rosemary has purloined hundreds. Hundreds of spoons. She has so many stolen cute spoons that she makes mobiles out of them for gifts. “Oh this? It’s for my beautiful niece, Annabelle. It’s constructed entirely out of stolen spoons.” She laughs. I ask her, “How do you possibly have time for all this??” “Fast and sloppy, that’s my motto!” I tip my hat. I step off. I am, you might say, out of the race.

Besides, in my little apartment, a few sweet little spoons are all I need. Let’s not get excessive. Every now and then I do experience a moment of temptation though. Like the time I took my fabulous niece, Maggie, out for coffee in one of the little cafes in Berkeley. She picked up her spoon, licked off the foam, and said, “Isn’t this so cute?!” I was obliged to spill the beans, so to speak, to confess the whole sordid history of my spoon thievery. She listened, rapt and wide-eyed. She loved it but I felt I had to assure her that those days were far behind me. “Aunt Elizabeth, I really want to see you do it just this once for me.” If you ever meet Maggie, you’ll see how I simply can’t refuse her. And so it is that I have recently added one more cute, tiny spoon to my collection. Doesn’t seem such a big thing. And someday, when I finally turn up my toes, it is my dearest wish that Maggie will remember and stick all those little spoons in her bag to keep for her own coffee. I may be a crook, but I’m certainly not alone. My saving grace perhaps is my love of beauty and of being with crazy, strong, wonderful people like Rosemary – and Maggie. “If the path be beautiful, let us not ask where it leads.”