coffee love

i tend to fall into patterns. the patterns of my life are both things that i decide upon and those that are thrust upon me with little or no control. i can refuse to accept some of these, but situation and responsibility come into the decision to break the pattern. other patterns are simple and easy to fall into because the first few times you do them it feels perfect and you find yourself doing it again. these are the patterns that make you who you are. they are the ones that you create for yourself and want to continue even when people question them.

i am in the middle of one of those patterns right now. i am sitting in a café with a bottle of water, a double espresso and blueberry pancake in front of me. when i came to malaysia i would eat local breakfast most days. “dua roti caini, kari ayam dan satu nescafe tarik”, but after about 9 months the desire to have something that felt more familiar came pushing back into my life. i found a bakery and switched to “un café express et un croissant, si vou plait” (only with the owner, otherwise it was back to english, bahasa or burmese i was reading from a book). after another year this also started to lose its ability to satisfy my need to feel at home, and i began to breakfast in my weekend café, the source of my pancakes, even during the week.

in all of this, there is only one constant… coffee. i have moved locations, cuisines and languages used to order (yes, most times english works, but what is the fun in that), but the coffee remains. it remains because at the root of all patterns, of all decisions that someone makes, there must be basic requirements. for me, starting a day requires caffeine. i woke up at 9:30 today, i left the house 4 hours later, it wasn’t until 2 in the afternoon that i got to my coffee, but for me this is the beginning of the day.

i was a coffee fan long before i drank it. i fondly remember my mother, aunts and grandmother sitting in nana’s kitchen, smoking cigarettes and sipping coffee from their saucers. they would pour their fresh perked, steaming hot, coffee onto the saucer and blow on it until they could sip. this was done with conversation and jokes flowing freely. my grandmother was the only quiet person in our family, a typical irish extended family, coming together around a table and laughing, crying or screaming at each other… sometimes all in the space of 20 minutes.

coffee is the drink that i found settled my mind when it is racing. growing up i always struggled with too many random thoughts coming and going as i was trying to focus. focus was hard to find, but came in the form of a bitter tasting black drink that can be had at any time day or night. luckily, it does not affect me by making me jittery… well it can, but it takes 15 shots of espresso a day over an extended period of time to get me there… ask me about the persumma year and i will tell you that it ended with me cutting back on coffee and realizing that everything has it’s limits. what coffee does for me is allow me to relax and settle down into a comfortable groove where my mind seems to flow rather than race. finding a way to feel this comfortable is what people search for their entire lives.

years ago, actually during the pursumma year, i was in line at starbucks, there was a queue 10 people deep, the barista was asking us if anyone wanted an espresso drink. i was in a snobby suburb outside of boston, and still most of them were drinking drip coffee not espresso… the lady in front of me and i both jumped up in line because our espresso drinks were done more quickly. i said to her “we have the perfect addiction”. she looked back at me with the “addiction?” look, but come on… “socially acceptable, cheap, available almost everywhere, easy to make for yourself” (the kids could make a solid latte on the home espresso machine at 8)… this is the kind of addiction you want in your life.

yes, my {beautiful indian} doctor reminds me that i should cut back, starting the day with 4 double espressos while i do email that tends push my day from dead stop to 100 miles an hour could be seen by others as a warning sign… but for me the coffee is the settling ingredient. it lets me focus for the next few hours… until the effects wear off and i start craving diet coke… yes, caffeine but not nearly as potent or enjoyable.

we start relationships with, “would you like to have coffee”. we extend dinners where the conversation is interesting and fun with, “why don’t we have coffee and look at the dessert menu”. we show friendship by remembering how someone takes their morning jolt. we show love by getting up early and making the coffee so we can bring the other person a cup while they shower…. it can be hot or cold, black, white or all the shades in between. everyone, all the way around the world, all levels of society, all races and religions drink coffee. any two people can sit and have a conversation over coffee… coffee is love in a cup.

i do fall into patterns. i do change my mind on things. i make plans and then alter them on the fly based on how i feel at the moment. but the one true constant in my life is that i know what i want right now, and every single morning… she is strong, black and makes me feel great… i love knowing that she is there for me.