coffee is poetry, coffee is light. coffee makes me want to be a better person, every morning. coffee is stability, when you desperately need it and offers no judgements as it approaches your bleary eyes and shameless grin that isn’t doing a very good job at covering up your sins from last night. “don’t worry,” coffee says. “let me get to work.” i have all of these thoughts about coffee and then i have more coffee and then more thoughts about coffee so i had a feeling that a quick search for “coffee” in my evernote would come up with some gems. here i have collected them for you, in no particular order. take an consumer as you please. sit and sip and settle in. sweeten it if it feels too harsh. or if you;’re not quite ready, that’s ok. it will be here awaiting your first sip.
from the summer of 2012.
on unemployment and coffee…
There is a certain reverence that my coffee consumption now affords. No longer free and limitless- how much will I take? And when will I take it? And each cup leaves me thinking, tangibly – “I wish I had fifteen more”.
30 nov 2015
Brooklyn I’m trying… to hold on to my roots
I spent the last 5 days at home in Virginia for the holidays. when I boarded the crowded northbound train on Sunday, I sat beside a well dressed man tapping away ferociously on his laptop. I sensed his discomfort as I attempted to pull my laptop out of my overstuffed travelers backpack, clothing items barely gracing his defined space. I set up my workspace and hesitantly asked him to plug in my charger. I got up to pay a visit to the cafe car and asked him if he wanted a coffee- surprised, his countenance immediately softened as he smiled and politely declined my offer with gratitude. As we pulled in to we arrived in New York penn station he told me to enjoy my stay in New York!.. a city where I’ve lived for 5 years and proudly call home. And I realized that it was likely not my lack of all-black uniform not my inefficient packing abilities but my kindness that led him to the conclusion that I was not from here. And after 5 years, this is something I strive to hold onto daily. well that, of course, and preferring my coffee with a little added charm.
sometime in 2016.
I love being overly nice to my barista. The relationship here feels like more than just business, the exchanges warm and light. A gentle understanding created when he knows I’m dependent on him to get me through my day, to make me feel better. Zi show him appreciation.
Even if I don’t go in, I wave at him as I pass on my bike. We share light conversation about our weekends, about business, about the days baked goods selection and the ever-changing neighborhood.
as he is Argentinian, I recently asked him, playfully, if he could teach me to tango. he said no. I laughed and said ok and scooted along to the creamer station. as I was leaving, he handed me a piece of paper- “I will learn tango and teach you,” as a rare smile spread over his normally serious countenance.
shit.
I can’t call him. because I have probably been into that coffee shop with 5 different men in the past month of weekends. and he knows that! but if I call out of politeness and then we meet up and I slowly let it fade, u cannot go in there anymore. he’ll have questions, he’ll be angry.
i won’t call. i’ll just play it cool. he must know the tango thing was just me, talking, as i was getting my coffee. searching for a (moment, glimmer) of connection before shuffling onto the subway and behind my desk. every interaction is an opportunity.
that’s how we southerners get ourselves into pickles up here.
the next time i went in, my coffee was free. he grabbed my hand across the counter. “i was thinking yesterday, about how lovely you are. and it made me start to cry liz. do you want to come upstate with me?”
i have switched coffee spots. and given up on my tango dreams. and never forgiven him for either of these inconveniences.
my week outlook, sometime in 2015.
and this. is what. we do.
sunday- rest
monbay- second date. charm and react. momentum. control. whiskey and bad decisions but not too many, whatever.
tuesday- hook up with old hook up. music, drugs, influence, noise. more more less less bases sufficiently covered.
wednesday- tinder date. beautifully overdressed brazilian man. he can’t help but kiss me and ok. besame- yo quiero sentir tus labios besándome otra veeez
thurs- coffee coffee coffee and father john misty. find money somehow for the album. talk to him and get real and get signature. from a pseudo Brooklyn-marmot perspective. leave. go on second first tinder date. drinks, don’t die. drinks. drinks.
friday, fuck it. go out.
saturday warehouse party, into sunday morning.
sunday- tempt descretion to advise then ignore it, smother it, run from it mother ducker and sing the chants of your heart.
monday. monday?
early fall 2016.
there hasn’t been one single day since i left you that i haven’t uttered the phrase “i miss him.” and it always comes out of nowehere, not after some fuzzy slideshow of nostalgia playing through my head or the sudden glimpse of your tshirt or words that i wrote for you or about you. it comes when i wake up with my first sip of coffee in the morning. it comes when the sun spills across the subway steps in the morning, bring beauty to the hustle and the grime. it comes when i’m empty and when i’m full. it comes to fill me and to take from me. it doesn’t even come, it’s always present, hanging, residing. it’s desire and pain. it’s comfort and strain. i rely on it and deplore it all the same but it’s what i have left of you, for now. a constant longing that i cling to that keeps you alive and me alive and us, in some capacity, alive.
from the train. november 2016.
i never really know how to feel leaving richmond, so i let feel. i allow my eyes to notice a side of the city that didn’t exist, or didn’t exist to me at least, when i lived there before. i allow my heart to be filled by so many people, anywhere and everywhere. family and friends and smiles from strangers. i let the food and the coffee and the virginia wine feel just as real and intentional as any of the decidedly non-pretentious hipster centric farm-to-table locales in north brooklyn. i drive pass the vmfa wishing i could be inside and promising myself and it to visit soon. i see my life there, and allow myself to see it. it never gets easier or harder, leaving here. what i fear is that i wouldn’t have the same ambition and drive in richmond, which sometimes i feel like is the only thing i have in new york, once you strip away the comfortable lifestyle, the rooom to breathe, the availability of geniune friendships. so i give myself the excuse of potentially giving up the core of my being now, as it stands, by coming back. but then maybe i’d be more driven, given the comforts i’d be afforded and could afford. finally. maybe instead of settling in they’d propel me. maybe everything would fit into place, exactly and wholly to help bring me forward instead of drowning me constantly everyday.
and then i see the skyline come into focus and every other thought fades away as new york fills me. this is my place.
from a straphanger’s tale. 2016.
Everyone on the subway smells of coffee and their own apartments, it’s familiar and invasive and someone is smelling you. You wonder how you smell to other people. You make eye contact with someone 15 bodies and three feet away. You both exchange the exact same look that says,”this is fucking ridiculous and no one should have to stand this and there must be a better option and most efficient public transit according to whom and I think that guys back hair just went in my nose and I don’t even want to go to work! and we live in the greatest city in the entire week world.”
And then the train lurches to a stop and everyone colltively groans and the doors open and we spill out like maggots from a freshly split trash bag and we all move intentionally and rapidly forward and up, ascending, together.
from homemade cold brew. 2015.
brooklyn i’m trying… to stay awake.
this city is too exciting, too tempting to limit social activities to the weekend. if you’re doing this- stop, immediately. this is not the city that never sleeps because the lights are too bright shining through our windows, or we have trouble finding our way home at night, or we’d prefer to make strange bedfellows with strangers (well, maybe that last one…)
it’s the city that never sleeps because of all the fantastic things that occur every night of the week. so then- how do we continue to work the next day?
coffee. of varying kinds, temperatures, strengths, tastes, coffee. as much as possible. until we begin to feel like humans again.
leave me your thoughts, on coffee or otherwise.
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