Gregroy Corso always told me I should never kill myself. “Oliver’,” he would say with his raspy vintage NyC accent,

“never kill yourself. Life is like walking through a strange city– one block may be really crappy, but you never know what you’re gonna find on the next block.”

He also said in one of his poems,

“Power is standing on the corner waiting for nobody.”

Having grown up in NYC, these city images mean a lot to me. And so does Gregory’s encouragement to live and keep on keeping on. My uncle T.C. and some good friends took their own lives because they lost sight of the possibilities waiting for them on the next block. And sometimes the world seems like it, too, has lost hope, lost sight of the fact that there is something beautiful waiting for all of us around the next corner. Maybe it’s just a little cafe that roasts its coffee beans with love; that has a few chairs set up in a ring around an old pow wow drum, that doesn’t offer wifi or attitude; just a place to sit and share a moment with a stranger over a yummy cup of coffee. What is important to remember is to be here now, cause we are here now, together, and this life is what we make it, what we make it together.

Café Aquí was founded in 2011for this reason. We remember all our friends that couldn’t hang on, all our friends that can’t be here now; and we invite all our friends, our brothers and sisters, especially those we’ve not yet met, to come and join us on the trip through this city called life.

Blessings