Joe - by Spenser Villwock Copyright 2005 A Creative Non-Fiction Essay
Quite truthfully, I hate that I am in love. Alas, the simple
tantalizing and seductive odor of my love allures me to virtually no
end. From waking up in the morning with a hollow longing
emptiness in need of fulfillment to the blissful joy of each
captivating moment together, there are times where
I wish that I could
bask in the aromatic ecstasy for a literal eternity. But through
fit-ridden sleepless nights endured, I know that too much of a
seemingly good thing can set me back. This leads me to the
distasteful dichotomous paradox of my love for this dark, roasted bean
from the tropics.
I have long been a coffee drinker. My first experiences stem back
to the age of 6. I have a strong recollection of my initial
curiosities being rewarded by my grandfather early on a Sunday
morning. The first cup that was offered to me was heavily laden
with half-and-half and white granulated sugar. Since then, coffee
has been a perpetual love-hate mainstay of my life. I love the
fragrance, the flavor, the ritual of preparation, and the conversations
which are invoked around the brewed bean. My dislike stems from
the occasional upset stomach, the caffeine crash, and the power it
holds over you in the form of addiction. I only drink it black
now, but I can still taste that first creamy cup that my grandpa graced
me with, prefaced by an exaggerated nod of approval to my grandmother
about 24 years ago.
Each time that I spent the night at my grandparents’ home, I awoke to
the penetrating fragrance of an early bird pot of Folgers. Coffee
was something that my grandfather drank incessantly; he would have been
overjoyed by the numerous origin-specific beans available today.
In my mind’s eye, grandpa had a mug constantly interwoven in the
fingers of his left hand. The caffeine vessel took a leading role
in his social dance. My grandfather’s gestures and hand movements
integrated the mug into his animated conversation style as if it were a
prosthetic attachment. More often than not, in his other hand,
there was a smoldering cigarette keeping time with the rest of his ad
lib orchestration. Despite my omnipresent trials with coffee, I
am fortunate in that the latter inclination is one that has never
enticed me even in the least bit. An energetic man, my
grandfather passed away from stomach cancer at the age of 56 in
1983. His caffeinated legacy passed onto several members of my
family, including my father as well.
Now as the old saying goes, “the fruit doesn’t fall too far from the
tree,” I find notable truths in the comparison between my father and me
in light of the magic brew. From witnessed observation and open
conversations about coffee while drinking coffee, I know that my father
has held a life-long battle with the bean as well. Perhaps this
is something that we all deal with as impressionable and habit-prone
beings. In the case of my eccentric father, he has elected to
balance out the good with the bad and limit himself to one cup of
regular coffee in the morning and the rest of the day he guzzles away
on decaffeinated joe. He pollutes his signature cup with
half-and-half and a spot of sugar to much the same hue as his father
did. My father doesn’t understand how I can drink untainted
coffee, and I don’t understand why he would change its nature any
further. I pay homage to my mother for my love of the true
bitterness of black coffee.
Caffeine affects my father, it affects me, and I am willing to assume
that it affected my grandfather judging by his lively antics. My
mother claims that she can sip a cup of coffee up to the time that she
retires for the evening and not miss a wink of sleep because of
it. Why I did not have the privilege of inheriting this tolerance
gene, I will never know. Was I late to the meeting of the
chromosomes? Perhaps my mother’s constitution is more tolerant to
the effects of coffee than my own. In any such case, it is a
reality that plagues my days with delight and malady.
There have been times where my coffee drinking sent my head in such a
spin, that for a brief, sweaty, pacing chunk of time I was unsure if my
electrified synapses could take it. When my life-love is under
the control of my freewill, I have typically allowed myself indulgence
on Wednesdays and weekend mornings before noon. The permitted
weekends have been exceptionally free to espresso
experimentation. Such joy these mornings have given me:
grinding the beans, filtering the water, selecting the brewing method,
and savoring every last droplet. Those were the good days.
Now, I’ve fallen back off the wagon as they say. The most recent
plunge, going on three weeks now, stems from a 4-day weekend visit back
to my parent’s home in Iowa. Each of the four fun-filled days
rashed with brimming cups of java as would only be expected from my
family. This mini-vacation has led me back into a daily habit
which has again spiraled a bit out of my control.
Interestingly enough, it has opened up a few key relationships at my
workplace around the ritual necessity of this tenderly-selected and
carefully-roasted bean.
Workplace colleagues and friends whom you have known for quite some
time start to take notice of your dependency, and all of a sudden you
are in a sub-sect cult of coffeeholics that share the same hallways and
payroll stubs as you do. It’s not as if there is a secret knock
or a special hand-shake, but you begin to be greeted in the morning
with, “Did you get any coffee yet?”
Not so long ago, these same people greeted you with a standard issue,
“Good morning. How are you?” inquiry. Is it me, or is all this a
bit strange? This odd interdependence upon an outside source
being used to keep our morale and productivity at its peak is
bizarre. Maybe it is all a ploy to keep the worker bees a
buzzing, as caffeine stimulates the brain and behavior. A tall
mug of coffee seems to keep all of our computer keys aclackin’ that’s
for sure. And if you really begin to know the faces which hold
the mugs around your office, you start to see the subtle downtrodden
looks of deficiency when their caffeine-pumping systems are running low
on the ol’ juice. “Have you had your coffee yet?”
Needless to say, there could be many worse addictions in life.
The list would be long and lengthy with plenty of suffixes ending in
“-ism.” Alas, my crutch dependence falls in the love and hate
struggle of my friend and enemy, coffee. I have begun to notice
my current trend, which is the first step to recovery, and I purchased
some green tea leaves to begin to integrate back into my liquid
lifestyle in substitute for the joe. It will be an uphill battle
as it always is, but I will succeed and regain my willpower.
Wednesdays and weekends will always be sacred days to share with my
love, the coffee bean.
