**The Calculus of Coffee**
Barcelona, 09:05 AM
The coffee is too sweet.
I stare into my cup, baffled. For three years, I’ve taken my cortado the same way—no sugar, just the bitter kiss of espresso cutting through steamed milk. But this morning, my tongue rebels. It wants the cinnamon-dusted chocolate de metate I drank daily in Oaxaca, the way it clung to my lips like a promise.
I catch my reflection in the café window: same freckles, same frayed denim jacket, same camera slung across my chest. But the woman who left Barcelona a month ago wouldn’t have reached for the sugar bowl. Wouldn’t have hesitated before ordering. Wouldn’t have—
“¿Todo bien?” The barista, Rafa, eyes the untouched sugar packet in my hand.
I shrug. “Cambios.” Changes.
He nods sagely, swapping my cortado for a café de olla he’s been experimenting with—cloves, anise, raw cane sugar. “Para la Sofía nueva,” he grins. For the new Sofia.
The first sip is a time machine: Oaxaca’s zócalo at dawn, the way Carlos would clink our clay mugs together and say “Para que despierte el alma.” To wake the soul. I blink, and I’m back in Barcelona, but the aftertaste lingers like a bridge between worlds.
Lina texts: “Te esperamos en el parque. Trae fotos.” Bring photos. I know what she’s really asking—bring your new self home.
In my bag, the Oaxaca photos sit snug between dog-eared notebooks. But it’s the unshared ones that fascinate me now: the accidental double-exposure where Monte Albán’s pyramids superimpose over Sagrada Família’s spires. The portrait of a Zapotec weaver whose hands move with the same rhythm as Marcos shaping pan de muerto. Proof that the world isn’t a series of separate rooms, but a house with countless doors.
I leave Rafa an extra euro for the coffee experiment. “La próxima vez,” I say, “prueba con chile.” Next time, try it with chili.
Walking to the park, I realize: this is the evolution no one warns you about—not the dramatic homecomings or existential crises, but the quiet recalibrations. The way your body remembers what your mind resists. The way belonging becomes less about choosing between versions of yourself, and more about letting them converse over coffee.
Polilla lands on my shoulder as I unpack the photos. Lina gasps at a shot of alebrijes glowing in moonlight. “Parecen…” she begins.
“Los dragones del Parque Güell,” Marcos finishes. Exactly.
I sip my hybrid coffee and smile. The arithmetic of belonging isn’t about addition or subtraction—it’s about discovering you’ve been the common denominator all along.
—Sofia