Writings For Life: coffee

Time & Coffee.

It's been so many things. Through time and space. I don't always think about it, but I know this affair runs deep. My first memory of it was of dad drinking it, on cozy winter nights. It would have a lot of froth, and Beatles would always be playing in the background. For years later, every time I looked at coffee, Beatles would start playing in my head. Coffee had its own soundtrack. And the smell, oh the smell was heavenly - nothing more intoxicating than that cup, lying on the table in my dad's study with its own soundtrack, while he read from an old book. I wasn't allowed to drink coffee because "you are too young and it is an adult beverage" but sometimes, dad would give me a sip, and knowing fully well how awful it would taste, I'd fall for the offer every time, perhaps secretly hoping that it would taste better this time. But my baby taste-buds were not ready for it. I absolutely hated the taste of coffee! And I recall spending hours trying to figure out how something can smell so amazing yet taste so horrid.

My dad would be utterly amused.

It wasn't until the first year of college that I really started drinking it. Everyday on my way to class at exactly 8:50am, I would walk into the campus coffee shop, and Jeremy would know what to make. That cup was warm in the winters and soothing in the summers. Coffee kept me awake in class, gave me company through some very dark nights and many cheery afternoons. It has never been just a drink, but an experience. It's Beatles and my father's study. It's loneliness through the woods, it's happiness in the mornings, it's a reason to take a walk, and coffee is also love. Knowing fully well that I would never say no, Dylan still asks me questions like, Do you want some coffee? Why don't we go to a coffee shop? Let me make you some coffee? Will coffee make you feel better? I found a new coffee shop, do you want to check it out? And he'll make it, and he'll take me, and he'll taste it, and he'll give funny names to all the different types of coffee I like.

Perhaps I'll have a study one day and I will read, old, utterly complicated books late at night and listen to the Beatles, and my coffee would taste horrid to someone else.

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, by WritingsForLife

The Crazy Ones.

This is literally a garage turned into a coffee shop. Unpaved floor, raw walls, peeled bricks, and a rotting, what once was, a fireplace. It even has its garage door in tact that they roll up in the summers. It's metal panes are replaced with glass so that we can see outside during the winters. Different coffee equipments line one wall, and vintage wooden furniture fills in the empty space in the middle. A shelf in the far corner has old vintage cameras lined on it. Perhaps the owner of the shop is fond of photography too. The couches on the far end by the brick wall are the oldest and the comfiest couches I have ever sat on. But I don't sit on the couches very often. Like a cat, I prefer sitting in the far corner of the shop with my back against the wall, the garage door to my side, and the entire coffee shop to my front.

There is an old map on the wall by the restroom, which looks like the map of South America? How in the world does South America fit into this picture? Oh, coffee beans. Right.

As I sip my beautifully crafted cappuccino, a man and a woman enter the shop holding hands, and a story begin to form in my head. A story waiting to be told, right there.

Writers cannot mind their own business. We live for this kind of adventure. Everything is a story. Everything is worth exploring. Every. Single. Damn. Thing. Can you imagine having so much in your head? Not being able to control making stories out of everything? Seeing meaning behind every single piece of crap you lay your eyes on. Dissecting every relationship, carving out every face your memory can conjure. No wonder we are crazy. Writers cannot be loyal to anything else but their art. There were so many times I was offered to write for money, but I couldn't do it. It felt as if I was cheating on my lover. Writing is not a job or a career. Authors are not made, they are born. Writers are crazy. The better the writer, the crazier she is. People develop a fascination with a writer they like. But you don't want to really get to know a writer. You can't really know a writer. Because a writer is not one person.

Ironically, I look up and accidentally glance at the black and white banner by the counter, with the famous Steve Jobs quote: "Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs, the square holes, the ones who see things differently...."