Coffee with the Coach
Coffee-inspired wisdom for everyday living!
In Coffee and In Life…Less is More.
I just broke down and paid the 12 bucks.
I know. I know. I could have gotten it for a fraction of the cost at some supermarket or, God -forbid, dollar store. But I couldn’t face another day with a scarcity-laden cup of Joe.
Yes. We’re talking coffee – you know the black-brown, bittersweet holy beverage of choice for the plant? Now don’t get me wrong, I am not a coffee junkie. It is one of the very few things in life I do in moderation. No methadone-inspired coffee rehab for me – I’d rather drink a good cup of tea than a bogus cup of decaf. I mean, what’s the point of decaf? Without the buzz there’s just no kick, no jazz, no ha cha cha! Got to have the ha cha cha.
So what provoked this sudden outburst – this devil-may-care burst of abundance? What matter of insanity gripped me so tight that I set out credit card in hand to find a parking spot on Lark Street, to put on layers of wool, acrylic and nylon (does anyone else feel like we’re living inside a refrigerator only the light’s on most of the time?), and to march my short, agile legs up the stairs of the Daily Grind, slap the counter and say, “I want the blend of coffee served at Justin’s. You know, that medium bodied brew with a hint of cinnamon?”
And 12 bucks later and lighter, I descend the stairs to my car and drive straight home, head to the kitchen, run the cold water, scoop the earthy grind, and cook up a pot of this delicious stuff. In the quiet moments before granules turn to nectar, with only the ocean-like gurgles of the pot for music, I anticipate sitting, warm mug in hand, and enjoying the mixture of peace and punch that only coffee gives me.
And as I sit here with my green garage sale mug in hand, I realize that coffee and life share one truth – less is indeed more. I chose less of a fine coffee rather than lots of ordinary brews with little or no imagination. I can drink a lot of cheap coffee or two mugs of liquefied beans that provoke a fleeting and ancient memory of Columbia, Central America, Africa, or Hawaii.
As it is in life…with coffee as my everyday reminder, I chose less money (for now!) and more free time, less work and more play, less profit and more purpose. With coffee to sharpen my vision and focus I choose more fun, laughter, and chances to share such magical moments with my family and friends, my community and my God.
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee’s frothy goodness.
–Sheik Abd-al-Kadir
Youth Springs Eternal at the Coffee Fountain
Remember a time when you didn’t like coffee?
Or, for those unlucky few who still dislike the seductive brew, remember back before those around you needed to be primed each morning with the magic oils of coffee?
YUCK! You might have said, at that very first sip, loudly of course with coffee spitting from your mouth, followed quickly by some sage adult telling you your disdain was temporary, you would come to love coffee. You know – the it’s an acquired taste speech.
But I think it’s the aroma that hooks us way back then. That intoxicating smell – warm, fragrant, comforting – just delicious!
For me the smell always reminds me of younger days. Growing up, the perk and puffing of the old Faberware electric coffee pot meant my grandmother was close by – having just arrived from somewhere fabulous like NYC, San Francisco, Phoenix, Hawaii. Her unique and pervasive smell (coffee mixed with a hint of Estee Launder) was the first sign that this petite, jewelry-laden, Channel suit-wearing version of the Blessed Mother was right here in my house!
She was like a lot of grandmothers. She pampered me… made me special, safe and wanted. I was the only one in the world when she listened to me – not an easy feat in a house of 9 children and two adults!
This memory returns often thanks to the abundant nature of both coffee and Estee launder perfume! I recently shared a cup of coffee with a new friend, an Albany travel agent specializing in European trips. She has the sweet coffee smell of my “Nan”, long passed. She is earthy, so continental, well traveled, warm and worldly – all the things I thought my Nan – with her flashy rings and jingling bangles that made a cup and saucer look like an exotic prop for explaining life. With this treasured new friend, I am transported to a time of ease and peace…a time when I was assured that everything would be all right … a time when I believed this.
It’s hard to find comfort in the world these days…it’s hard to grow up, to lose the easy faith of childhood. Now faith must be deliberate and purposeful. Faith requires a commitment, a challenge to see it revealed in the most unlikely of places… even at the desk of a new friend who coffee in hand wraps you in a rare calm made real by memories of a safe and secure past.
“Coffee falls into the stomach … ideas begin to move, things remembered arrive at full gallop … the shafts of wit start up like sharp-shooters, similes arise, the paper is covered with ink.” -Honoré de Balzac
Pour Yourself a Cup of Flow
How I ever got here I’ll never know.
No I don’t mean I was clobbered over the head and found at the Grey Hound bus station with no memory of my prior life before arriving on the shores of the capital.
I mean, how I came to live in Upstate New York when I tried like hell to avoid anything north of New Paltz. My roots are Mediterranean you see and as far as I am concerned I like my weather like my coffee – hot, wet, and lying on a sun drenched hill south of the equator.
Today was the worst. Swaddled in two scarves, a fleece vest, a turtleneck, a Land’s End all-weather nylon parker, lined leather gloves, pants, more pants, socks, more socks and shoes, I could have sworn the SUNY Albany parking lot was being used as a location for an upcoming film called, Oh Holy Night, the last great expedition to the North Pole! Wind battered people walking sideways, ice and snow and a haze of milky sun.
Yet here I am. Cold and shivering despite no lack of body fat and winter underwear to cover it. I confess that most days I see this weather as a demon to be fought. A fight you know I am destined to lose. And yet despite my daily defeat I return each day to wage war again!
As I sit rubbing my hands over a steaming cup of Columbian brew, contemplating the ironic fact that I was born in the dead of winter, I think there must be another way, a way to live with rather than against the climate no matter how severe – at least until I manifest the down payment for that dream house in Southern Cali.
There is an old adage in the life coaching business that pain is unavoidable but suffering is optional. Suffering is the resistance to pain. Usually our first attempt is to buffer pain by fighting it but alas this can and will make matters worse. (Get the weather analogy?). Think of grief or heartache – a nice subject for a chilly winter day. If you resist it, it persists, doesn’t it? When you give into it, lay on the couch eating Haegen Daz for a week or two, rolling in your human capacity for sadness without benefit of shower or bath, you eventually exhaust these feelings of loss…despite that initial feeling of resistance, that feeling that says, if I give into this I’ll be swallowed alive! No you won’t. You might have to move slowly until the blood returns to your head, you might have get your life back in order or at least be kind to yourself while you wash up and get back in the flow of things.
Flow! Flow is the reward of letting pain come and then go – without resistance. Flow is the alternative to suffering. Get it? Well, don’t worry. It can take a lifetime to master. Thank God there’s coffee to pass the time.
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.
- T. S. Eliot, Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
Winter Blues…no more blueberries
Yesterday I really did measure my life out with a coffee spoon. It wasn’t just any coffee…but that rare, exotic blend that defies explanation – Green Mountain’s Special Edition Summer Blueberry. I know what you’re thinking. Blueberry coffee? You cannot be serious. Oh but when it comes to coffee I am deadly serious. Well, maybe not deadly serious but serious enough.
Blueberry coffee was once limited to specialty stores and Green Mountain. Now like most good things its been adopted by the likes of Starbucks and Honey Dew Donuts. It has become to me and my fellow warm weather lusting summer-files the beverage of choices during the long, sweet lazy days of June, July and August.
Whether its sipped hot or sucked cold through a straw with whipped cream, this coffee can lower your pulse, slow down your heat beat and make you swear your sitting on a beach somewhere. Which is JUST what I needed yesterday…since in reality it was a dark rainy cold day in October.
Like any coffee lover (I am not addict. I could quit anytime… if I really wanted to but I only have one or two cups a day… most days) I stashed several bags of this soon-to-be-missing-from-the-supermarket-shelves flavor in my freezer. Since September, I’ve made it last longer by cutting it with some breakfast blend flavors I can get readily. But now I am down to the last bag. The last bag of Blueberry Summer.
I cursed my self for not buying more when I stocked up a couple of months ago. I thought of calling my friend, the pusher that turned me on to the stuff in the first place, and beg her to sell me a bag or two from what I am certain was a freezer –full, enough Blueberry coffee to last the winter.
As I dipped my coffee spoon into the last bag I decided to make a pot uncut, pure and untainted but breakfast blend. Yes my mood called for a strong hit of hot-and -humid but that’s not what stopped me from being so frugal with the grounds. I was fighting the dawn of these dark chilly days and the winter that will follow. By hanging on to a summer that was gone, I lose out on the season that is and will be.
I don’t want to live each day for the next seven months measured in small, miserly spoonfuls. I want my life to be heaping and daring and unafraid of seeing the bottom of the bag…knowing that I need to toss the empty bag and move into the next surprising flavors that await me. I hear the pumpkin and holiday spice are pretty good brews this time of the year.
