Cinnamon Caramel Cream Nitro Cold Brew

Cinnamon ..

Cinnamon caramel

Cinnamon Caramel cream

Cinnamon Caramel Cream Nitro cold brew

6 words, the longest item on a Starbucks menu

Also, the most expensive drink you can order

I say these words softly so though saying a prayer.

why was I saying these words?

Well, I am practicing.  So that when my turn comes, I shall be able to place an order for my drink, without any difficulty.

Why would there be any difficulty to place such a “simple” order, in the first place, you may be wondering?

To answer this, I will first take a deep breath and invite you to my world.

A world where silence is deafening but also my refuge.

I was born deaf and for the last 35 years, I have communicated using ASL (American Sign Language).

I have loved my deaf community, and my deaf world.

You know that joke where they ask fish about how they find living in water, and the fish says “What’s water?”

That is my relationship with silence. I simply do not know anything different and I did not want to.

Not a week passes by when someone will forward an article about the “miracle of cochlear implants”

The magical device that is lets deaf people “hear” and “talk” and become like “the rest of society”

I HATED it.

By “IT,” I mean that damn device and everyone who thinks that deaf people need to be fixed.

I have nothing against people who choose to get the cochlear implant

Many of my former students, at the college where I am a professor, have opted for the implants over the past few years.

So, for the past 35 years, I was happy.

But then, something happened last year.

Isabella.

Our daughter.

Early last year, my wife and I discovered that we will be parents to a beautiful baby girl.

We named her Isabella.

For the first time, I consider getting the cochlea implants

I wanted to hear Isabella’s voice, hear her small breaths

Hear the word “Daddy” when she says it for the first time and every time after that.

Hear every sense of the being that I helped create.

My wife is a Hearing person, and ASL was enough for both of us.

But I want more from now.

Last month, I had my surgery to get the cochlear implant.

My relationship with silence has changed since then.

I can “hear’ now but I am also deaf, as soon as I remove the implants.

Silence, once my “truth,” is now ONE part of my existence. The other part is “partial hearing”

After 2 months of speech therapy and speaking only to family, I am out on my own for the first time

Every time I take off the magnets of my implants, I enter my “old home” again where everything is silent

Like a child, curiously looking into his own room standing outside the windows and peeping in

All of this brings us back to the Starbucks and my 6-word order- Cinnamon caramel cream Nitro cold brew

I have been to this Starbucks many times. Its right next to my house.

Usually, my wife orders for me if we must stand in line to order, because the Barista’s don’t know ASL

Else I just order on the app, and pick up my drink from the “pick up” section. Its easier that way

So for me, there is a invisible line that exists between the section where people pick up their order and the line where people are actually standing in line to order

The line “was not an option for me “, till now, because that line is for the “hearing “

It does not say that explicitly, there is no signboard that shouts that out, but its implied

Because once you stand in that line, you are expected to speak to the barista to place your order

And how do you expect to a deaf person do that exactly?

So, my experience at a Starbucks is very different than yours.

But today, is different

Today, I am walking over to the hearing section for the first time in my life

When Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon he said “One small step for man, one big step for mankind” The moon- a place that was distant and so far, away that it has only be dreamt of for a long time

In my life’s story and that of millions of other deaf people like me, me standing in the hearing line of a Starbucks, is no less than Standing on the moon.

 I could as well be walking on water.

My turn comes.

“What can I get for you today,” says the Barista.

My eyes follow his lips. Old habits die hard. I am trying to confirm I “heard” what he said.

“One Cinnamon caramel cream, nitro cold brew , Please”

I saw these six words slowly and carefully, as thought I am telling my wish to Santa Claus.

I am sure the Barista has heard this order a million times before, but does he know, it’s the first time I have said it out loud in public.

That he will forever be etched in my memory,

Of course, I could have ordered something simpler like a “Cappuccino”, but that’s wouldn’t be memorable.

I had to order the longest menu item, because that is just me.

“Would you like anything else with it ?”

I wasn’t expecting this.

Is this how it happens always .

I just ordered the longest item on the menu and now he wants me to speak to him again

You guys love to talk.

By “you”, I mean “hearing”.

I also in that group now. when I am wearing the implant

You see, no one in that Starbucks knows I have a big magnet above both my ears that are processing sound input real time. That’s because I am wearing a beanie that go above my ears

I have seen people with cochlear implants “hide” their magnet in their hair

But what are bald people like me , expected me to do ? display out implants for the world to see !

I zone back to reality

Looks like he has been waiting for an answer while I have wandered away in my thoughts

Like Walter Mitty, am I leading a secret double life too.  Would anyone even understand this reference anymore

I feel a hundred eyes shooting me form behind as people get restless.

“Nothing else. Thank you”.

“and what will be the name for that order”

This one is easy

“Isabella “

The Barista seems surprised.

But seeing me beaming with my eyes, and lips, he decides to not enquire anymore

I step aside to wait for my order

My heartbeat is outrageous.

Afte a minute, Barista calls out my name “Drink for Isabella”, and I run over.

My hands are trembling , and a tea is forming up

I just hold my cup and keep looking at where it says “Isabella”

I know right away, this cup will never be thrown away.

How was the drink?

Happiness never tasted better.