Coffee

    Coffee is my friend. I think coffee is friends to a lot of people, so this is nothing new to most of us. I'm not even sure when it was I started drinking coffee, I believe I was in my mid- to late twenties. My parents were coffee drinkers and I have vague recollections of sipping from the dregs left in their cups when I was quite young and enjoying the taste.
   Most of the coffees I had in the beginning were of the social variety, getting offered them after meals and whatnot. I don't think I even started making my own til after I was married and started having children (probably needed it by then!)
   I do have a fairly clear memory of my first coffee "rush"--it was one of those holy cow, so that's what they were talking about kinds of moments. All of the sudden I could feel my eyes getting a little wider and my awareness picking up and my senses heightening. I thought this was pretty cool. And legal, too!
   I think that I've built up a bit of a coffee tolerance these days, I very rarely get that same kind of rush anymore, but I still enjoy the coffee. I can even drink it fairly close to bedtime and it doesn't seem to keep me awake. Occasionally it keeps me awake enough to make it bed.
   There is a bit of a feeling that I'm reconnecting with something whenever I sit down to a coffee. This might be because it is such a social drink and there does tend to be someone with me when I'm drinking one. At the same time, I get a very similar feeling when I'm drinking one at home, alone. I can be sitting there in the livingroom, at loose ends, and then it occurs to me that I can have a coffee. It almost seems like a revelation, oddly enough. Then, when I take that first sip, it's like settling deep into an easy chair and life is fine all over again.
   I spend a lot of work time with various different people I support, visiting coffee shops. There is the occasional day when, by the time the work day is over, I've had perhaps three or four coffees. At times like this, I feel as though I'm never going to want to see another coffee again. And then the sun rises on another day!
   I am somewhat undecided on whether I drink too much coffee or not. I occasionally see warnings about the effects of coffee and then I see other sources saying it's good for you. As with most things, moderation seems like the best way to go. This is occasionally hard to do with coffee, though.
   I am also not one of those people who goes for fancy coffees--espressos, cappuccinos, lattés and the like. Nothing intimidates me much more than a trip to Starbucks! No, I am quite unapologetically a regular coffee kind of guy. I drink regular, I take it regular, and I drink it regularly and usually drink it with the "regulars".
   Hard to say what life might be like without coffee. I certainly remember when I didn't drink it. In fact, I remember being a bit if a tea granny when I was a kid. If worse came to worst, I imagine I could still drink tea. I just wouldn't want to. Life without coffee would also mean life without coffee shops. I find this very hard to imagine--it just seems as though much of the social fibre these days revolves around visiting coffee shops. I'm not sure whether this is because much of Canada becomes a cold weather country for large chunks of the year or not. There is something about a regular stop in a Timmies that seems to connect you with your community. Likely because if you've stopped to drink, you have also stopped to talk. Not only do you talk to whoever you might be with but you also end up vicariously taking part in all the audible conversations around you. A lot of the time this will keep you on top of current events but some of the time it also keeps you abreast of people's private lives. Most of these conversations are eminently forgettable but, in their own way, they are also slightly reminiscent of your own life and are a reminder that we are all interconnected.
   Coffee has us in its grasp. Generally, it is a loving embrace and one to be both nurtured and cherished. My search for pics for this post took me to Google Images, where I simply typed in "coffee". More than any other post I've done the same thing for, the images which appeared before me were all inviting, warm, mellow and friendly. I almost got a caffeine rush just looking at them and I would heartily recommend doing the same search yourself, should you need a gentle break from whatever your laptop is assailing you with these days. On top of everything else, there is no fickleness to be dealt with, for sure, coffee will always be there for us.
   As I'm finishing off this post, I'm also finishing off my morning coffee. Breakfast, coffee and the newspaper constitute my daily morning routine. If, however, circumstances dictated that I could only have one of the three, I would most certainly choose the coffee. I'm really not sure why this is. I'm not addicted to the stuff (although most addicts would tell you the same thing about whatever it was they were addicted to), I simply would describe it as a strong preference.
   So there you have it, my little ode to coffee. Written, for the most part, while I was drinking one. I would not have imagined that coffee could become a whole blog post. I guess I am a writer who is invested with his subject matter! I also think I'm addressing this to the many like-minded out there, you know who you are. Meet me at Tim's and we can discuss it!