Coffee
connections, courage, and what it means to me alive
The table was crowded. Car keys and cell phones pushed aside to make room for the three cold brews. One black, two with milk in varying shades of tan, a laptop balanced precariously between the table edge and a lap, and in the center of it all—my manuscript.
I’m meeting with my publisher and editor over coffee. They ask me to read a section out loud.
Reading my work aloud feels simply wrong. Writing is so private. Hearing my own sentences spoken aloud in a public space feels like mooning a crowd of unsuspecting strangers.
Being a writer has always been directly linked with coffee in my mind. Coffee stains on journals. Curled over a notebook in a café. Fingers wrapped around a warm paper cup while contemplating a stubborn string of words. Strong and bitter sips between paragraphs. That is the image of a writer I have inherited from movies and television (oddly not from books) and one I had willingly stepped into.
I started drinking coffee young. I got a job at Starbucks at sixteen and haven’t started a morning without coffee since. Yes, I’m sure the chemical reliance on caffeine is at play but mostly that first cup feels like a reward for having woken up and returned to myself again.
My brain is sharpest with that first cup of the day. A fresh pot remains my go-to fix for writer’s block. Some part of me always believes inspiration can be coaxed out through caffeine and ritual.
Coffee marks time.
There is coffee before work and coffee after dessert. Coffee before long drives and coffee after sleepless nights. Celebration coffee. Funeral coffee. First-date coffee and catching-up-after-years coffee. Coffee when you have nowhere to be and coffee when you are already late.
My senior year of high school, I had a late arrival and my best friend had an early dismissal. We took turns picking up coffee for each other. I stretched the legs of my newfound freedom by getting coffee whenever I pleased. I felt so cool, borderline powerful, walking through the halls with an iced coffee in hand. Every Friday, our sleepovers were preceded by a few hours of meandering around Target, always after getting coffee.
Still when I visit her in the city, our first order of business is to grab a cup of coffee.
I love working at a coffee shop in a vacation town. All kinds of people come from all kinds of places, and we are all united through a shared need for coffee.
Coffee in new places. Coffee in the same places. New coffee in the same places. The same coffee with new people. The magic never ends!
A positive interaction with a barista scratches a particular itch in my brain, fulfilling some deep social need. A stranger I know I relate to, if only for thirty seconds. They ask how my day is going and maybe they mean it, maybe they don’t, but still I answer honestly, because the truth is when I am in queue for a coffee, my day is always “so good!”
Being a coffee drinker opens a new flap in life, one that always offers an activity and with it, the possibility of connection. It’s lightning in a bottle.
“Want to grab coffee?” is rarely about coffee. It is an invitation disguised as an errand.
I cannot begin to explain my love of coffee. It is deeper than a taste I enjoy. It is ceremony, and I worship at the altar of the bean.
A pot brewing first thing in the morning is the greatest smell on earth. A breve cortado settles something deep inside me. An iced latte (extra shot alway!) is the nectar of the gods. I am not a coffee snob so much as a coffee enthusiast. I do not need the best coffee all the time, but I need access to some coffee all the damn time.
Caught off guard by the request to read aloud and suddenly mortified, I glance over my shoulder. Strangers filled the tables, busy with earbuds and glowing screens or absorbed in the company of their peers. Most tables occupied by some combination of both. No one in the cafe was paying attention to me.
I took a sip of my coffee, tanned with a splash of whole milk. I felt the familiar buzz and slight eye twitch that should follow any good cold brew. And I started to read.
I love you from my head tomatoes,
Gareth
P.S. My debut book comes out June 25th!
I love getting coffee with you
Yes! I love this! You're right - coffee is never just coffee. It's a ritual, an experience, a moment (or two) to savor.