hey y’all,

i’ve been gluttonously enjoying as many umami sage lattes from the can opener as i can until they disappear again. it’s a seasonal drink for winter, and right around march is when they take it off the menu. but you can still order it off-menu until the ingredients run out. it’s the perfect balance between craft and creativity. excellent espresso quality, perfectly dialed in, thick and rich crema, and well steamed whole milk. no bells and whistles to cover up a lack of quality. but the sage syrup is sweet and complex, changing the longer you drink it. it’s best hot, as ice dulls the tastebuds.

i’ve been thinking a lot about memory lately, and the state of being temporary. i’m terrified of losing things and of being forgotten, myself. do i love the umami sage latte as much as i do because it’s one of the best in town? or do i love it because it is scarce? is it more sweet because i can’t have it all the time? gluttony is a sin for a reason, right? or is the reason i miss it because it’s that good?

i am, and have always been, a pleasure seeking vessel. at the same time, i absolutely salivate over delayed gratification. i love to wait. the waiting is part of it. i spend the 8 months of the year that i can’t have the latte thinking about having the latte. not constantly, and not obsessively. but when otto asks me in july where we want to get our sunday coffee, i’m reminded that umami sage is not one of the options i can choose from.

i remember the roundness and the warmth on the back of my tongue, the flaky salt on the foam, the caramelized brown butter sage caramel. i choose somewhere else, and fantasize about the winter solstice. i hate the dark, and the rain, and the cold, but i love this fucking latte. there’s some risk here too. what if the can opener decides not to bring it back this year? i’ve been burned before. many times, actually. dunkin’ only had peanut butter cup syrup for one halloween and then never again. you can buy the commercial bottles off of ebay for $300.

my favorite ramen place in cherry hill closed for good in 2022. my favorite hibachi place on the outer banks caught fire and nearly burned down in 2015. the buffet i grew up going to has been replaced with a plaza azteca. my favorite pasta got taken off the menu at mama kwan’s. i never knew whether they’d come back, or if the last time i had it was the last time i’d have it. i got lucky a few times, with the pasta and the hibachi place, but others are gone for good.

fall out boy went on an indefinite hiatus in 2009. this was the first time something like this happened to me. i was 14. something so foundational in my life was suddenly gone. there was nothing i could do to bring it back. and yet, i knew it would be temporary. everyone around me told me to quit wishing. it was over. they’d all moved on to other things, and fall out boy had too. their hearts were in the right place. they wanted me to grieve healthily so i could enjoy something new. though, some of them didn’t understand it at all, and thought it was just a function of teenaged hysteria.

but i knew that something that pure and perfect wouldn’t disappear. that’s not to say the men themselves, but the art that they make. to this day, nothing on earth moves me the way fall out boy songs do. i don’t know if anything ever will. sometimes things get their hooks in you and touch something inside you that you didn’t know was there. that kind of thing can’t be unstuck.

i knew i’d get new fall out boy music some day. i knew i’d finally get to see them live, after waiting through my whole childhood. you have to understand that this was before it was a marketing ploy to “go on hiatus” and then comeback. all the emo bands do that these days, but fall out boy’s was real. nothing anyone says sounds true anymore, so i brought proof of my unshakeable belief in their return.

on february 4, 2013, i was a pre-law student in tobacco country, sitting in a 200-level political science class on foreign policy in the middle east. i was strung out, hungover, and bored out of my mind. i was scrolling my facebook and saw a post from the official fall out boy page with no text, just a link to a youtube video. my surface thought was, “surely they’ve been hacked.” but in my spirit, i knew. i knew pete would come back like this. no fanfare, no warning, just a link and a prayer that people still cared.

that link was to the music video for my songs know what you did in the dark. i ran out of my class into the courtyard outside of brewster hall, jammed my headphones in, and watched the music video on a loop in tears. i hadn’t realized how much grief i’d been holding those years. it was simultaneously an acknowledgement of how possible it had always been that they’d never come back, and how cathartic it was to know that my faith wasn’t in vein. it flooded me all at once, and i couldn’t do anything but cry. i didn’t have anyone to call, because no one cared the way i did. now, everyone says they did, but i was there.

there is a lyric variation that shows up again and again in fall out boy songs:

“the best part of ‘believe’ is the ‘lie.’ i hope you sing along and you steal a line.”

“i will never believe again; preach electric to a microphone stand.”

“i’m the last damn kid still kickin’ who still believes.”

“i will defend the faith going down swingin’.”

“i’m just young enough to still believe, but young enough not to know what to believe in.”

in between all the lyrics about addiction, suicide, heartbreak, and homesickness, there is a central message of faith. radical, impossible, nonsensical faith in themselves and their purpose in the world. even when there’s no proof, even when the odds are impossible, even when it felt pointless.

i don’t know when the last time i’ll have an umami sage latte from the can opener will be. it might’ve already happened. i might not feel its loss for many years. nothing on earth is permanent. you can’t hold onto things so tightly that they break. you can’t stand still, hoping things never change.

i think that’s what faith is. you are so fragile. life is so unpredictable. you control very little. everything you love can be taken from you, without a moment’s notice. you’re not always going to get the catharsis. sometimes your favorite band really stays gone. sometimes your favorite ramen shop permanently closes. sometimes the person you loved most isn’t who you thought they were. sometimes people die. sometimes nations die. sometimes whole cultures die.

i think memory is where loss and faith meet. nothing that is remembered can be killed. if even one person remembers, it’s still alive. and even when everyone on earth who might have remembered is gone, the earth remembers. it’s true, believers never die.

xoxo,

kuya von