How do you define coffee?

Saying it’s ‘a hot drink made from the roasted and ground seeds (coffee beans) of a tropical shrub.’ doesn’t seem to capture it.

Me, I embrace the feeling… I define coffee as the experience in partaking.

I’ve written a lot about the taste and smell of coffee and how sometimes it’s the people you share it with or the time it gives you to find your center.

Recently, it’s been about the comfort. It’s been rough around here, emotions are high and we’re all on hairpin triggers with at least one of us in tears at different points in the day. So when I say coffee it has become to mean comfort. It’s a steady presence of warmth to hold and of constant reassuring. I can close my eyes with cup in hand and breathe and find some balance even just for a second.

I have gotten accustomed to pouring coffee in the morning and just holding it, staring off into space. Partly because my morning routine of mom/alarm/nurse/motivator happens several times in the course of an hour and then repeats for the next 3 to 4 hours. So, when I’m not those things I stare blankly at my coffee not seeing it or really anything else. I forget to drink the warm bean juice wanting the warmth in my hands more than in my body.

Ashlynn and I did visit one of my favorite local places today after getting some lab work done at the doctor. When we both love coffee and it’s National Coffee Day I suggest stopping and getting a cup to give us both smiles. I held (and drank) most of a lavender latte. It smelled amazing. Ashlynn described the smell and taste ‘like a crisp Fall day where you’re curled in a chair under a nice fleece blanket on the deck watching the leaves fall around you’.

Today as most days in the recent past I did not finish a cup of coffee… not that my love of it has diminished it has just taken a new meaning, a new form for a bit, as comforter and friend.

I hope National Coffee Day brought you many a happy cups ☕