I believe in coffee

a mash-up + last in boundaries series

I believe in coffee. More exact, I believe in the moments that surround the cup: the clanking of the regular and decaf, at the Dining Car when I had Saturday morning breakfasts with my grandparents. Or coffee at the college diner, 2am, so vital to be un-phased by caffeine, recounting the escapades of the night in laughter and youth.

Then there was the advent of lattes and coffee-shops, were I even made and kept a friend over caffeine and Dostoyevsky, before the advent of Starbucks. Then the advent of Starbucks and my hazelnut latte years, whether in Scottsdale, AZ or Marietta, Ga, ordering with my Mom before the activities of the day as one does when they no longer live at home and try out what independence and rebranding of family brings.

The quiet of decades of coffeeshops with journals and pens, clacking of keys to catch thoughts, or fingers curled around the words of another: satiated.

The years at corporate work, the coffee hard and tarred. The years, at Elcy’s of Glenside, a Period Two pick up for a few friends and quickly back on campus for sophomore English 2B. The brief foray of Keruig (yuck). The years of Uncle Ken’s and a terri-chicken musubi (some of my favorites), and the cups after hospital visits, or in airports, the cups of contemplation and celebrations—all those cups.

Then years without coffee. Without meat. Without and within, journeying into depths of learning and and understanding, and then years of the undoing and unlearning; living through mountaintops and deserts, being shown, no matter what is grand in life there is that which is human and unhealed and that too is grand.

One coffee that I can still smell is an early morning near the Ko’olau mountains; the sweetness in the air, the soft cadence of one still sleeping, and the quiet potential of the morning. A newly emptied ashtray, a latte, a book of wisdom and a knowing that this was too precious to be true and here it all was in my cup. The ancestral years of knowing and not knowing, the years of mysticism of knowing and not knowing—they all swirled in the depths of one cup. There was not one better than the other; there was the mingling of years, of conversations and sips, all in one space—suspended.

We avoid where we are because it isn't what we want and in the process we tend to think of this as bad. We don't like to be bad - so we avoid where we are. We are—in fact—avoiding the starting point of our life's journey . . . externalized and disconnected. — unknown, could be me, credited to a FB post 13 years ago

Then a refinement of coffee. Learning so much about bloom and flavor, a refinement so precise and ornate it would take it all and turn it into that which was destined and unseen. Years of boutique Ethiopian and coffeshops of the best corners of Manoa and Northern California, Old City and streets tucked away trusting their excellence would bring a knowing pallette.

In one of those shops, on a hopeful morning, I had bought two coffee cups, simple ceramic cream, with an inlay accent, to hold the romanticized perfect cup. They were my Calling In. They still sit wrapped in a storage unit on Puhi Street, unused. Perhaps, waiting.

As the years passed, I loved coffee more, but the vibration had changed. Starbucks had long ago been discarded and just when the moment seemed most ripe, I stopped drinking coffee as a daily ritual all together, done. She said look, really look. And I did. I had to; the moment had changed.

I believe in coffee and she still holds a great muse for me; that love and like has taught me to love is to let go, to be open-eyed and meet the day for what is rather what should be, and funny thing: Today, I sip one cup.

Right now as I typed these words to you, sourced from a little unsuspected space of solace in recent storms, from my favorite old purple cup because — there are no absolutes and the more that is accepted the more room there is for all of it.

Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash