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Wednesday, 22 July 2009

Coffee

By Johna Ferguson

I don’t know what you think about first thing on awakening. Maybe how sore your back feels or maybe worried about an appointment you have with your doctor or, maybe, a bored feeling about it being just another day.

But for me, my first thought is a cup of coffee. I can almost smell its pungent order drifting from the kitchen, although I am the one who must get up and make it. Now I realize there are all kinds of modern inventions that have set-in clocks, so the coffee can be brewed and ready when your feet first touch the floor, but I guess I’m too old to adapt to those ways. I am still using my original way of making it. No, I do not boil it in an open pan over the stove burner; that’s just going back a little too far for me.

I make it in what you call a French press. But first, before even making it, one must have the freshest coffee possible and that coffee now must be from an area where the laborers who pick the beans are paid a fair wage.

I grind fresh beans about once a week and store them in a well sealed jar. That means in the morning all I must do is grab the jar and the pot. I fill the hot-pot with water to boil and once that is turned on I immediately pour myself a glass of cold orange juice and standing in the kitchen, drink that down with my morning’s array of pills.

Then it’s coffee making time. First I love the smell of the grounds as I open the sealed jar. It just whooshes out at me with an almost hypnotizing effect. I spoon two heaping tablespoons of the grounds into the glass pot and then pour the two cups of boiling water over them to let them steep.

While that is happening, I heat in the microwave about one-quarter cup of 2 percent milk in my favorite cup. It’s black with raised white dots arranged like dominoes around the top. I use this cup for it reminds me of my wonderful past, all the domino games I played first with my father, then with a friend and finally with my husband.

Four minutes later and the coffee is ready to be squeezed down in the pot with the double-screened plunger. Oh, how I love watching the fluid change from light tan to a dark, almost mahogany color. I pour it into my cup and breathe in the tangy aroma. I think that is the best time, those first few sips that make my spine tingle up and down and also cleanse my mind.

And then it’s off to my computer to write something, just anything that crosses my mind, but without the coffee to spur me on, I doubt I would even make a stab at it. I’ve set a silent rule that I must fill one typed page before I can go get a second cup and I’ve just finished my quota. No rereading it; I just place in the essay folder on my computer desktop. But you might read it some day if I decide to submit the story.

Hopefully it will start your day out, a cup of coffee in hand of course, to bring new ideas into your sluggish mind for you to jot down and also eventually send to this blog for me to read and enjoy.

[EDITORIAL NOTE: All elders, 50 and older, are welcome to submit stories for this blog. They can be fiction, non-fiction, poetry, memoir, etc. Instructions for submitting are here.]

Posted by Ronni Bennett at 02:30 AM | Permalink | Email this post

Comments

Johna - Neat story!

Every morning after I brew and consume a delicious double espresso, I do a 20+ minute yoga routine. After reading your post, I intend to add an hour of writing to this regimen.

Thanks - Sandy

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