Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
Joy Might Be an Overstatement
Joy would be too strong a word but getting up and making a pot of coffee in the morning is a really nice thing. Hearing the coffee maker grind those beans and start dripping, yeah, I like that.
I make it a point to never run out of coffee beans (or toilet paper or toothpaste or other essentials of life like canned hash). I like a well-stocked larder so that if worse comes to worse, I can at least count on making a decent cup of coffee.
My mother made coffee in a percolator. I loved the sound of coffee perking and sometimes miss it. I’ve thought of maybe buying a percolator to hear that sound, but it seems morbid and silly. We remember such tiny things about our parents. I remember my dad’s circular saw in the basement and how we could hear all the way upstairs. The sound of industry and independence. The smell of sawdust.
When there is enough coffee made, I pour two cups – one for me and one for the old man – and take them upstairs. I get back in bed and look out the window, then I read the paper, and think about how the day might unfold. My coffee cup used to sit on the edge of the sink while I rushed through a shower to get ready for some meeting made to seem more important by having it at 7:30 a.m. That doesn’t happen anymore. If someone invited me to a 7:30 a.m. meeting, I would say no and then I’d think less of whoever invited me to such a thing.
So, there’s making the fresh pot of coffee and then there’s Half and Half. There has to be Half and Half or the whole effort is pointless.
5 Comments on “Joy Might Be an Overstatement”
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Snow Door | wisconsinacademy.org
Listen to Jan read her essay “Billy” presented on WUWM’s Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “At the Breakfast Bar” on WUWM Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “The Parish Hall,” on WUWM Lake Effect
“Fury Cannot Touch Me,” Modern Love, NYT, 9/29/11
I so get this. a part of my childhood too, along with smell of my mother’s original Jergen’s lotion, which I still use and is my favorite, and the smell of the cut grass as my dad mowed the lawn on Saturday mornings, really the only yard job that he did. now I love my fresh cup of drip coffee each morning, put on the jergen’s and smell the grass when the condo landscapers cut the grass.
I too remember the percolator and I loved watching the dark, hot liquid pop up into the little glass top. On occasion my mom would pour about an inch of fresh coffee into a cup and I would dip my morning toast into it. I have no memory of why that started or even who initiated it. A long, long time to have coffee in my life and still I prefer rich, dark black coffee over anything else. I think my favorite was always the enamel ware percolator on the Coleman stove coffee while camping. How can anything be better than strong hot coffee on a cold forested morning just after the fire pit roars to life.
Coffee on a camp stove is absolutely the best in all ways.
What a beautiful ode to coffee and all the memories it evokes!
Why do so many people think we go to bed early and get up at the crack of dawn? NONE of our friends do that. We stay up until we feel like going to bed and get up when we have something we really need to do.