Tag Archives: Macy’s European Coffee House and Bakery

The Road to Diamond, Day 134: Twin Greetings and A Little Victory

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Posted by on in Assistance, collaborating, Community, Entertainment, Hiking and Nature, Historical, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

April 11, 2025- Macy’s European Coffee Shop, a cornerstone of Flagstaff’s Near South Side, was quieter than usual, in late morning. I was pleased that the shop’s owner, Tim Macy, was present and able to meet Bobot and Thelma. They enjoyed-we enjoyed-a light breakfast and fine coffee. Under ‘Abdu’l-Baha’s watchful gaze, a spiritual bond between America and the Philippines extended to Flagstaff.

Eyes of the Master
Bobot, Thelma and the Master
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Bobot and Thelma in front of Macy’s

The next stop was a persistent and generous pool: Montezuma Well remains the repository of a spring-fed stream, holding its own, despite an infusion of algae, along its rim. A limestone sinkhole that receives 1,500,000 gallons of water a day from the spring, it was a source of sustenance for the Southern Sinagua people, in the first millennium A.D./C.E., and is a source of inspiration for the people of the Upper Verde Valley today.

Montezuma's Well
Rim of Montezuma’s Well

What was sweetest about this visit is that, for the second day in a row, Thelma overcame her acrophobia and approached the rim, then walked down a flight of stone steps to the closest approach still available to the source spring. The counselor in me still celebrates people overcoming their fears.

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Thelma and Bobot near the source of Montezuma Well

Our small celebration of this step forward came at another of my favourite spots: Rafter Eleven. I have been going there, pretty much since Dawn Wasowicz opened the establishment. Dawn has developed the restaurant and tasting room, as a venue for local artists and a community gathering place, over the past eleven years. She was also pleased to meet my two friends and they found the ambiance-and their scones, quite pleasing as well.

A brief shopping trip (for Bobot) ended their last full day in northern Arizona. Tomorrow, we will stop at Farmers Market and Zeke’s, then head south, to Desert Rose Baha’i Institute, and back up to Phoenix, where I will bid my friends farewell, and they will enjoy some extended family time, before leaving for other parts of the U.S.

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Tonalea

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Posted by on in collaborating, Community, Inspiration, Matters of Faith, Personal Values, Service Activities, Social, Spiritual, Striving, Travel

March 27, 2024- “You don’t need to leave a tip. We didn’t really DO anything.” The cashier thus made her appeal to the dignity of one and all, as I paid for a couple bags of freshly ground coffee. I thought how refreshingly decent this woman is, and how sentiments like hers give the lie to the notion that Gen Z is collectively self-centered and always has its generational hand out. (The Greatest Generation, once upon a time, expressed similar sentiments about us then-youthful Boomers, but I digress.)

One of the bags was going to the old friend I was en route to visit, and to his family. C lost his wife of 40 + years, a few months back, and so I was heading up to Tonalea, to offer condolences and emotional support. The community’s name in the Dineh (Navajo) language, means, essentially, Red Lake. There is, in years of heavy winter and spring precipitation, an actual lake, off U.S. Hwy/160, on the community’s north side. This year, I saw no lake.

It was a smooth ride from Prescott to Flagstaff, where I bought the coffee from Macy’s European Coffee House and Bakery, owned by another old friend. Traffic in and around Northern Arizona University reminds me a bit of Manila-everyone is doing their own thing, and gridlock is not altogether a rarity. My upbringing helps me transcend that, as a motorist here and as a pedestrian in my second favourite big city (after San Diego). Looking out for others makes for a longer journey, but for better self-esteem, at day’s end.

Driving from Flagstaff to Tonalea was even smoother. Dineh and Hopi people are quite orderly and civil, in their driving habits, and the area is sparsely polulated, to boot. As the two Elephant’s Feet (grey sandstone rock formations) looked on, from across the highway, I turned on the graded dirt road that winds around, towards Black Mesa, and reached C’s homestead, five miles inward. There he stood, as I arrived, at about the same time as planned.

C reminisced about his wedded life and what had led to his wife’s passing. Her suffering, it seemed, was mercifully short. We then talked of the connection between those of us in the flesh and our departed loved ones. Years ago, as Penny and I lay together, she told me she had seen my Penobscot ancestors standing over me, as I slept. I was not surprised by that. The ties that departed souls have to this world are very, very strong. Everything that has happened to me, both the serendipitous events that have transpired and my protection from malevolent forces, over the past thirteen years, or even before, has been due to those who have gone before me, and who make up a bulwark of energy that lets me do the bidding of the Divine.

After a two-hour visit, and my reassuring him that all will be well, even with the swirling changes that seem to bother him so, it was time for C to get back to tending to his family, working on his fences, and keeping livestock from eating his trees. It was also time for me to head back to Prescott, with a “halfway stop” at My Pita Wrap, a small Mediterranean restaurant on Flagstaff’s main drag. Going back up to Dinehtah, with its otherworldly rocks, grounded people and mystical energy, is always a reset for my own personal energy.