coffee

I don't drink coffee everyday anymore. This is something that might cause David to "roll over in his grave." Sorry. I do use this phrase from time to time. It's less effective when one has been cremated. Oops, sorry again. Way of life here ...

Coffee was nearly as sacred to David as his music. Seriously -- he believed coffee was "of God." (Hey, I guess it is.) He loved it so much he would even drink bad coffee. I won't. In my opinion, life is way too short to drink bad coffee. Good coffee is rather hard to come by, so sometimes I opt for NO coffee. Blasphemy. (In this instance, I'm using the word to mean an irreverent or impious act, attitude, or utterance in regard to something considered inviolable or sacrosanct.) I found myself walking past a Starbucks in the airport yesterday and slowed my steps -- really feeling like it was betraying him. How's that for not uncleaving, huh?

Most people who knew David also knew of his love for coffee. A great percentage of these people also catered to his love of coffee. He put a coffee requirement in his booking kit for gigs. He would receive gift baskets and personal deliveries -- all because of coffee. I can't begin to calculate how much coffee he consumed -- how much coffee he poured down the drain! or how much money he spent on coffee. At one point, I suggested that if we had deposited what he'd spent on coffee over the last 25 years into a big glass jar, that we'd have enough to fund a Mediterranean cruise. Probably two.

We have books about coffee all over the place. Who reads those books, anyway? I guess plenty of folks thought that David would, so they gifted him with those, too. As I was contemplating this blog, I sought a few of them. One has a napkin in it, marking his place. Another has one of his postcards marking the spot where he left-off. I guess that answers my question. He read them. And I'm leaving those "book marks" right where they are -- even if I end up giving the books away. I'm weird that way. I want someone else to contemplate the previous reader. It makes life more interesting.

Why was coffee so important to him? It's important to a lot of people, but he was obsessive about it. When we first started seeing each other, one of our favorite things to do was to walk down the street from the college to Mr. Donut for coffee. It was open 24 hours, so we could go very late and have the place all to ourselves. We would talk and talk and talk. That's how we got to know each other so well so quickly. These are very happy memories. Those were the days when I could sleep no matter how much coffee I drank no matter how late. During the summer before our wedding, we would meet at a truck stop on I-80, halfway between our two locations, and drink lots of coffee -- a cheap way to keep a table for as long as we wanted. When we moved south of DC and started the 5:30 am 40 mile commute, we never left home without the travel mugs. Back then, they were huge things with big handles. Cars didn't have cup holders, so we had to hang onto them. I remember it took about 15 minutes before it was cool enough for me to sip. David could sip right away without burning HIS tongue or lips! How!? Anyway, coffee was important to keep us awake during that awful drive northward -- sometimes just sitting in stand-still traffic trying desperately to cross the Occoquan River. No conversation could be stimulating enough to stay awake for that.

One day, long ago, in Hanover, Germany -- we had gotten off of a train, having spent the night travelling. Remember, we were dirt poor, so the $3 (whatever that was in deutschemarks) miniature cups of non-refillable coffee were like liquid gold and, of course, highly impractical. We spotted something in which we had sworn we would not indulge -- a McDonald's. Brilliant! Just this once! A LARGE cup of American coffee -- just to get us through the day. We shamefully entered, ordered, and excitedly took our first sips. And spit them out. Who knows what the heck they had done, but it was awful -- like they had re-used the grounds, probably more than once. You know the taste. We were duly punished. It did make for a wonderful coffee memory, though -- and a story we told often.

After our daughter arrived and my work schedule changed, he took a job outside of the city. He developed a ritual, of sorts, for his commute: stop at 7-11, get coffee and get cash. Our ATM fees were nuts, but he had to pay for the coffee! Then he started to travel to the west coast. He was ruined for good. Starbucks had entered his life. Never again would he travel without a Starbucks in his hand to board a plane or when exiting through the arrival doors. I really didn't like their coffee back then, but he did. No turning back.

After his diagnosis, he went through an understandable epiphany: Life is short; stay awake. He wrote a song about that, too. Thing is, he meant it. I don't think he ever got a "regular" night's sleep again. He would stay up well into the night -- then crash in the early afternoons, preparing him, again, for a late night. His body clock was so off-kilter that it actually had a negative effect on our marriage and family life -- easily understood. Movie night! Guess what. Dad's asleep and it's only 15 minutes in ... For 14 years his doctors tried to get him to lay-off the caffeine after a certain hour so that he could get some restful, healing sleep. No such luck. He really wasn't interested.

A cute little book on coffee states, "... coffee excites and focuses the brain along with the rest of the body." It goes on to say, "Solitary or sociable, it allows us both to unwind and to recharge. ... Coinciding with the founding of newspapers and the thinking of the Enlightenment, coffee became known as the drink of democracy. British coffeehouses were called 'penny universities' because, for the price of a cup, people could meet and discuss politics and philosophy." Who knew! I think they should add that it can also elicit profound poetry and songwriting -- and that bit about focusing the brain ... you gotta wonder if that's how he beat the beast for so long.

My last memories of David and coffee were at Hospice, of course. While he was in the hospital before he entered the house, he didn't want coffee -- didn't ask for it. That was exceedingly unusual. It was a booming message to me. Once he got settled-in and (relatively) comfortable, he caught-on that he could have anything that he wanted at any time of the day or night. He started requesting coffee. It wasn't strong enough, so I brought Vias to add to the cups. He did drink it most of the time, but not always. After he died, I collected about 50 of those little Via packets from sport coat pockets, his computer case and other luggage. Keeping well-stocked with those ingenius mini instant Starbucks thingies (in cases of coffee emergencies) had become another obsession brought-on by that amazing, stubborn brain of his.

Due to the level of stress in my day-to-day life, my blood pressure began to rise. I had no choice but to decaffeinate. David could not imagine how or why I could do such a thing. It was actually liberating. Three months after he died, my blood pressure plummeted to normal. It was unbelievable to see the numbers and to understand the psychic energy that had been required to get through each day. (In this instance, "psychic" meaning of or pertaining to the human soul or mind.) Not to mention adrenalin and everything else that the human body and mind conjure up to get us through the most difficult situations. Slowly, I began to drink coffee again, but not very much. I am a complete and total coffee snob, that is, if it's not absolutely delicious, I don't drink it. I buy small quantities of beans, grind them and brew half-pots -- and even then, if the beans aren't just right, I won't drink it. I might sweeten it and chill it for iced coffee, but I won't drink it hot. This actually does cause me some trouble, but it's not a crucial element of my day like it was for David, so it's okay! (Sorry, but the church coffee sucks.)

My preferred methodology of coffee consumption is when it brings people together over cups and conversation. "Its aromatic allure can beckon us away from our daily business to a cafe for a quiet sip, a newspaper, and a view of the world." Like those early years sipping over a donut, leaning toward each other over a formica table -- or asking for refills in those heavy restaurant-ware cups and saucers, oblivious to the activity going on around us. A bad cup of java shared on the hard, cold floor of a German train station or from jumbo plastic mugs on a shared commute -- or the peaceful quiet of our back deck, sitting in our Sandy Hook adirondacks -- are all favorite ways to imbibe. I miss THAT coffee drinking. I now do that with my daughter, though sometimes she choses the mud of Arabic coffee over my Columbian brew. Now isn't that ironic.


A Passion for Coffee, by Hattie Ellis