Thing I love #28: coffee.

For some reason, I don’t find myself talking about coffee much here.  Which is weird.  Because I work with coffee.  I come home with coffee under my fingernails and in my hair.  I spend a lot of my day pondering how the Tanzanian Peaberry is tasting, sharing the joyous news that we have switched back to the Kenya AA, sampling the new El Salvador, and gushing over beautifully pulled espresso shots.  Why I don’t talk about these things here is a bit of a mystery to me.  Perhaps it is because I like to pretend I don’t think or care about work much.  Perhaps it is because my coffee enjoyment has never become an addiction, so talk of coffee headaches/cravings doesn’t really come up here.  But get me started and I will gush on and on about Ethiopian beans and well-roasted Sumatra (why people insist on burning Sumatra beans is completely beyond me).  I will talk brewing methods.  I will count the merits of the french press.

Oh, yes.  I will.

And then I will hold myself back.  Because even reading this, I feel a bit weary of my passion and knowledge of something as small and silly as coffee.  On the other hand, it’s nice to know something.  And I love the smell of the coffee freshly ground and wrapped in a bag.  And I like when Adam smells it in my hair.

What is something you know a lot about?

My day off was cloudy and chilly. I put on a scarf and warm socks. I still had to go into work for a short review, but there was a market downtown and the possibility of photographs of autumn leaves. The wind off the lake was cold. The vendors all were bundled in layers. The sweet apple woman helped me pick out apples and pears. The man who sold gourds and tomatoes told me that being crazy helps time go more quickly. I bought cheese and squash and celeriac and cauliflower and far exceeded the capacity of the little bag I brought. I made my way to work with three.

On the street I ran into a handful of the customers I see every day at work. They were happy to see me. I was happy to see them, too. We waved to one another or stopped and talked. I discovered that the streets downtown had become my friends because they carried these people.

At the shop, I was met by a girl I work with. We hadn’t worked together in some time. She stopped what she was doing and walked out from behind the counter to give me a hug. I gave her an apple. She made me a latte with cinnamon and honey. Another girl working in the back heard me laughing.

Independent girl, I always need to be reminded of these things: the way we can kiss each other on the cheek with our presence, the fullness we can share in sharing our selves, how saying the words “I’m happy to see you” can change the human heart. On my walk home, my bags of fruits and vegetables were almost too full for my small hands.

Thank you for reading my blog. Thank you for sharing.

A man came into the shop, yesterday.  I had met him once before.  I don’t remember what he ordered last time, but I remember that when I asked him where he was from, his face lit up.  He told me the ways he loves Morocco.  I can be shy, sometimes, to ask people about their origins.  But, I think very few things make people more glad than talking about their homes.

This time, he ordered coffee and sparkling water.  He was surprised I remembered him.  He had been very busy working on his thesis.  He is a graduate student of literature.

“What do you study?” he asked.

“I don’t study,” I said.

“Good!” he said, with marked enthusiasm.  I thought perhaps he misunderstood, and I laughed.

“You think it is good?”

“Yes!  I think it is very good!  Let’s say you love something.  Let’s say you paint or write.  Let’s say you knit.  And then you go and study it.  I think something can be lost there.  Something important.  The essence.”  His hand gestures were thick like his accent and just as welcoming.  “Maybe I am wrong, I don’t know.  But this is what I begin to believe.”  He was a little sad about that.

Was he right?  Do you think you can lose something of what you love when you make it a subject in a book?  I think he is wrong.  I think there is something beautiful in studying, learning, sharing ideas.  And at the same time, I think he is right.

We smiled at each other, and I felt I had met a friend, again.

There is a man that comes into the coffee shop in the afternoons. He has grey hair, a soft voice, a small rosy smile, and in the winter, a big leather hat. He asked me how I was doing, and I confided with a laugh that I was very grumpy that day. I asked him how he was.

“Not the best, but, I’m good at pretending.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Well, you’ve got to pretend to be who people want you to be to make it in this world…

-short silence-

Don’t you think so?”

“I don’t think I’m old enough to be that jaded.”

What do you think?