Coffee is Embedded in My Life

Coffee!  It's a daily routine, a habit with me.  It's also a smell, taste and warmth I've counted on, since I started savoring it. About when I was 18 years old.

Every morning, when I was going to high school, I'd get up (usually in the dark), go into the kitchen, and instantly smell coffee.  I'd see Dad, inevitably,  sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee while reading or writing.  I could hear the sound of the radio at the same time I smelled the coffee.  He was usually listening to the Canadian station.  

If the coffee wasn't already brewed in the pot, it was making noise on the stove, ready to bubble up, in the little glass ball on the lid. I remember being mesmerized, while I stared at the dark coffee rising to the top.  Hitting the glass ball on the lid, over and over and over.  The aroma saturating my memory, forever.  

Old Perculator

When I did start drinking coffee, not just sniffing the potent drug, my addiction became multifaceted.  The warmth of my hands, holding the cup.  The taste of coffee with milk.  The distraction from Dad talking to me and the radio giving off a yacking sound, in the background.  The grounding, I counted on, before I left for school. It was consistent.

As the years went by, the coffee-thing was in my pores.  My memory is set by the most important senses connected with memory; smell, taste, emotion, warmth.  My husband, Harry, use to bring a cup of coffee to me, every morning, in bed.  Unless I was up before him (which was unlikely), he loved to do this for me.  We'd sit with our backs propped up on pillows, and begin the day together.  Only the bathroom light was on, shedding the light we needed to see each other and our cup of coffee.  It's an emotional memory crystalized with coffee.

Every day, I took a thermos of hot coffee with me to school.  Sipping on it, during the small amount of quiet time I had, each day, was gratifying.  Drinking coffee with Mom, when I'm visiting her,  is also an emotional link.  Either in the morning, or in the evening (sometimes with a plop of Bailey's included) when we switched to decaff.  Walking to Mighty Good Coffee, visiting Heidi, when she was a barista, is another positive connection to coffee.  I drink coffee with my brother, Tim, when I visiting him in Troy.  We sit, sip and talk.  

On Wednesdays, I go to The Robot Repair Shop, on Liberty Street, to volunteer.  I stop in a small coffee cafe, next door to the Robot Shop, before I start in the morning.  It's called the Elixir Vitae Coffee and Tea.  I fell in love with the place when I talked to the young man who owns the store.  Ed Renoullet. I asked him about the paintings on the wall.  He said, "My mom did them."  As he fixed my morning coffee, he answered my questions about the paintings and the artist, (his mom).

Ed's Grandfather

Ed With His Older Brother, Fishing

His Great-Grandmother's Portrait

His mom has passed away and he brought her art work, into his coffee shop, to display.  My intuition tells me "He misses her, it helps him connect with her, now she is gone."  One of the paintings is of him and his brother.  Another, of his grandfather on the couch.  

The art work was off the walls, for awhile, I was disappointed.  The replacements on the wall didn't feel as warm and loving.  A few months later, her pictures were up again. 

If you're ever in Ann Arbor, on Liberty Street, stop in and get a cup of coffee, it's an inviting place.  A bonus?  Yes, it's next to the Liberty Street Robot Store.  Don't hesitate to pop in there, either, as long as you're in the neighborhood.