I have understood much of my life through coffee.
I’ve written about it a lot, actually. Which I didn’t realize until I sat down to write this to you on an Equinox morning and saw I had already done it and you can read it here:
Before latte-life, it was diners. Many of my best moments were spent with skin suctioned to diner vinyl and hand on a coffee cup. In college, there was a Greek diner that we went to every Sunday morning and every post-night out when the bars closed. The most surreal thing? Graduation weekend when I pulled up for one last breakfast it was torn down. The weekend we graduated it became a CVS and all those cups lived only in an ember of our memory.
Gone.
It’s almost like it never existed. I think that is why marking the year, reflecting, flipping the page of a photo album and retelling old stories are helpful. It locates us. Remembering helps reorient our vision and forward motion.
What do you come back to to refill your cup? It’s a rainy Equinox here in the Philadelphia area and I am grateful — letting the Element of Water announce the availability to let it all wash away. Clean out the cup. Push the saucer closer for a refill. Warm ourselves by that which returns and make space for more of what we love.
I mean — that’s really what it boils down to doesn’t it? To live and love ourselves, our days, and our life🎶
It’s amazing what one good cup of conversation can ignite especially if you have warm milk and a little bit of foam.
[The rest is from Write the Year, to give you all a peek at what is going on in here] What do you return to? What is your ritual for understanding and greeting your morning?
I have to tell you a little story.
The other morning for whatever reason I thought about frothed milk. See, I had always been a milk in my coffee kinda-gal. Then I learned more about really fancy coffee (and it is true that if you are having a really amazing cup, to drink it without milk allows you to experience the subtleness of the beans. It’s true. That said…) and I paused my milk drinks.
Unless I was out and enjoying a good latte. Press play.
One of my friend’s had gotten me a hand-held foamer years ago. It was a simple smile each morning to do that. I think that was before I got into bullet coffee, which I loved for a spell. Anyway, back to foamer-frother there was a simple lovely action about that extra detail.
That little thing popped into my mind, and I looked down at my coffee and heard myself ask myself: Are you enjoying this?
And I answered, you do this too, right?: It’s fine.
Then the witness asked again: You can have better than fine.
I stood at the sink and let those words plop right into center.
I took the milk out, a sauce pan and a whisk. I added a little maple syrup and sat there and realized a few things:
All of this was right here
A change in my perspective was the difference
Once I decided I deserved more, more revealed from what already is
This Equinox peer into your cup and ask: Is this fine?
And see what comes.
✨May your bounty uplift you in ways everlasting,
Kate
P.S.
Ready to Flourish? These are conversations I have with wisdom clients, 1:1 we work it out. Time we love it all.