Coffee: Bean of the Devil

            The thing about coffee—besides being a drug—is this: At its best, coffee gives you margin. It gives you transition time from asleep to awake, from private to public life. 

Some of us have just as vivid of a life when somnolent as when waking. I, for one, have been busy all this night, doing and thinking new thoughts and actions that my awakened life neglected or didn’t have time for. Coffee gives me the moment to detach from that reality to this one. 

I also used to wake up most days feeling quite ill. Headaches, uterine pain. Because I am a teacher, it’s not unusual for me to be actually ill with a head cold, and morning is the most acute time of the scratchy throat, the stuffy nose. Coffee would alleviate the headaches and soothe the scratchy throat. I’m feeling fine right now, though. Thanks for asking. 

And—besides being a drug—coffee is delicious. When I was young, I used to drink coffee black. I liked the bitter taste. Because I started drinking coffee at the age of three, sipping the dregs of my parent’s cold cups, it was not just bitter (although not verybitter, my parents were ones for weak coffee. So am I, honestly.), it also had a staleness about it that I loved! There’s a stale flavor that you like, or you don’t. It’s most easily discerned in chamomile tea. I like it… I always have. Thus the beginning of my life with coffee, earlier in years than anyone might have imagined. 

Nowadays, coffee is delicious in a way that the 1980s could have never imagined: Coffee is a template on which to create infinitely varied flavors and experiences. You can be as creative in preparations with coffee as you can with the good ol’ standby chicken breast. In this way, coffee appeals to those with the capability of creative expression. 

I certainly don’t have that capability. Especially not as I am transitioning from asleep to awake, private to public life. But I enjoy the talents of those who do. 

            Another thing coffee gives is a gathering point, an occasion for community with others. Almost anyone except my husband will enjoy the offer of going to get coffee, and it’s less expensive than protein, veg, and carbs; you can linger over it as much as with any meal. Those people who don’t like coffee? They’re just being rude. Throwing a wrench in the social fabric of the universe that binds us all together. Consigning the other to caffeine-less loneliness. At least, that’s what I think. 

And when you run short on time for all these social, delicious, margin-giving functions, coffee is, after all, a drug. 

Isn’t your life insanely busy? Don’t you hardly have time for reflection, much less the beginning of any true leisure? (Not confusing entertainment for leisure; they couldn’t be less kin.) We need drugs to get us through this inflexible, hardened, exhausting world we created. Coffee does that for us. 

So, when I pause to enumerate the benefits of coffee, I become disgruntled with myself, the busy life I have made, and society that aids and abets that blinding run for us all. Regardless of my feelings toward myself or others, coffee is there for us, smoothing the path as we blearily shamble through the world. 

Wait. Maybe this isn’t a good thing. Maybe it is coffee that has brought us to this. Coffee, and electric light in homes. Without those two things, I am sure we’d get to bed at a much more decent hour, and then we wouldn’t have a drug to hep us up, to pull out of our beds, our fatigue. 

I take it back! I take it all back. Coffee is a great evil in this world. Without it, I would have to realize the limits of my humanity and just stay home. I’d probably lose that home, come to utter ruin, but at least I’d be well rested. 

And that’s that.  

I need to check into tea. 

(Originally posted 10.18.18)

Warmth

            It’s an unseasonably early freeze; sleet pelts my windowpane. The suddenness makes the cold seem more acute than usual. It causes me to seek warmth in all its forms. 

            I turn toward my husband for warmth; he’s the warmest person I know. His sunny nature, loving attitude. His physicality, the nape of his neck as I stretch to kiss it, his strong arms, the chest in which his precious heart beats. He envelops me in the softening dark, I am warmed. 

            I pull up my blanket and lift my book. With only a whisper of motion my catkitty arrives, finding the bowl of my legs. Together, we while away the time, cuddling and loving on our love seat, and we are warmed. 

            I step into the shower, the steam rises around me. I pull out my warmest scents: citrus and honey. The lather surrounds me, I am warmed.

            

            Snuggled in my bed as I write this, my husband at the door: “You’ve got to come look at this.” He opens the front door: SNOW! Big, huge, angel flakes of snow falling down. I grab a blanket, turn off the living room lights, peek out the curtains as he fusses with trying to get a photo. 

            He settles down, comes to me on the couch, and holds me as we watch the beauty. Catkitties, not one, but two, join in to see what all the fuss is about. Serenity and loveliness reign in the quietude. We are in beauty. We are in companionship.

I am warmed. 

Hannah Key

            In 2004, I moved out of my mom and dad’s house. Rabbits Deke, Molly, and I (a person) had been living there so I could go to teacher school. I moved into an apartment to be near my friend Kendra. I loved my little place, but was missing something. A cat. My mom had a cat named Smokie who was absolutely The Buddha. Coolest cat you’ve ever met. I missed Smokie. Being a dog rather than a cat person, naturally, I decided to get a cat. 

            I cruised on down to my PetSmart where they had cats for adoption. I looked at cats several different times. I almost landed on a longhaired white with sky-blue eyes. However, I was advised to make sure the cat I got was not animal-aggressive on account of the buns. Little White Angel wanted to rip Deke’s head off. No go. 

            So we tried this grey and tan tortie named Hannah out with the buns. Animal-avoidant. Yay! I was surprised to learn that she had been up for adoption for over a year. Though her looks were demure, not as brash as Hairy Angel Cat, she had a definite prettiness about her. 

            I had been attracted to Hannah because she did the cutest thing—they had a watering can to refill cats’ bowls. When she had her time out of the kennel to stretch her legs, she’d dip her pitty paw in the water: licklicklick, dip, licklicklick. Adorable. I took her home, not realizing I would be guarding all my beverages for well over a decade now. Maybe it’s her training program to make me less susceptible to date rape drugs; I don’t know. 

            The first night I had her, she patiently waited in the hallway while I brushed my teeth. When I climbed into bed, lamp lit, book in hand; she jumped right up there with me! She lay down on the left hand side of the bed, right at home. 

            And it’s been that way ever since. When I was single, she used to start to fuss at me around 9 pm to go to bed, and she’d keep it up till at least 11. 

            To her mind, she’s essentially my mother. She’s channeling Marmie from Little Women at all times; she’s nurturing, but strict with me. All torties are strict with their affections and preferences, I guess. She chats and chirps at me often to let me know what’s what.

            She aids and abets my reading habit; we like nothing better than to hunker down on the love seat with a blanket and a book. We’ve been doing it for ages. 

            She’s been with me since the first year I taught elementary school in the state of Kansas! She’s seen me through heartbreak, car problems, job insanity, my parent’s divorce, my dad’s dementia and death… she’s been there through it all. She intends to be. I am her Person.

            She’s endured the taking on of Mr. Lou, an excessively boingy orange and white boy cat, living with a galumphing, deep-hearted black lab, a husband who has shut her out of her rightful place in my bed, and three teenage boys; Lord have mercy. She’s had to learn to be social after having lived with a spinster alone for nine years, she adapted to all that my life brought her, and she still loves me.

            Although she also now adores my husband AND his oldest son! I’m a little put out at having to share her affections, but there it is. FAMILY.

            She’s getting older now; her fur is not as plushy. But she hasn’t slowed down much from her ever-gentle, meek, chatty ways. She still loves it when I grab a minute to be her cushy internally-heated mattress, especially in the winter months. 

            I try not to think of the day that I have to live without her, this sweet light who has encompassed so much of my adult life. When I do, I pre-cry, though she is still here. 

            Until then, she’ll be waiting as she always does, at home. Ready for me to pick up a book and cuddle. Ready to love and boss me around. 

            I love my sweet Hannah Key. 

Green

            Green is the distillation of rain and sunlight; the primeval blue and yellow that power this world. Green is the snap-crunch of celery. Green is health, growth, plenitude. It gives birth. It gives birth to the bounteousness of harvest time. Green is the first sign of hope after deadly cold. It is the winter wheat that has been making God glad since my youth. 

            Green is not, and has never been, jealousy. How can growth and life itself… spring, ever be jealous? How could it ever be in want? 

            Green is beyond emotion; elemental. It is the queen of the secondary colors. She herself is half the earth. 

            When my eyes and heart walk outdoors to see, green refreshes and renews me. She gives me back my perspective, lays her gentle hand on my bruised mind. I become still. I know that my part and place is small, but beautiful. She heals me.

            To eat green is to love myself and this good world that is given; the agricultural act that ties me to the growers from time immemorial. My body was made for this green food, for this green planet. 

            When I lay me down in sheets of lilies, green quiets and comforts. She is sister to the freshening breeze across my skin, gives the birds their transport, those birds that are barely tethered to any of our ponderousness, the weariness that goes on in the brown and grey cities. 

            Green is meek and easily ignored, yet she waits. When I remember her, and come, she does not scold—she only receives me. She receives me graciously because she has always had, and knows, her power. She is Giver, and simply, kindly gives without ostentatiousness or pride.

            She is simple, healing, beautiful, kind. 

            I am glad that I live in a world where there is green. 


**With homage to Rich Mullins, Wendell Berry, and a twisted understanding of Elton John.