Dear Morning Coffee

DEAR MORNING COFFEE:

You are so much more than just a hot beverage. You are a sweet nectar from the Gods that activates my senses and allows me to open both my eyes and my heart. Using this morning as an example…

Three sips into the first mug I feel myself coming alive. The buzzy white noise around me shifts into the sounds of my family. Their voices begin to differentiate… someone needs money for a school field trip… another speaks about taking the family car… I am still uncertain about details like where my purse is, or where the car keys are, or which children are actually talking to me, but I hear their voices. And I thank you for that.

As I reach the bottom of the first mug, I begin to feel an emotional connection to the faces and to the sounds they are making with their mouths. The tall hairy one is my husband! He is muttering about the missing car keys. Both he and the teenaged girl with the long brown hair are looking at me intensely. They seek my wisdom. I hold out my empty mug and the tall hairy one recognizes my need and refills it. Thank you tall hairy husband person. I am sure that I love you very much and I look forward to remembering more about our relationship.

Eyes closed, I chug down half of mug two and have a sudden memory. My purse is black! I have no idea where it is but I know that it is black. I open my eyes and the room appears in colour. Like Keanu Reeves in Matrix I am now moving super fast even though it looks like slow motion. Or am I moving super slow even though it feels like fast motion? Whatever I am doing, it appears to be working. I have found the black purse. Inside is money. Under the purse are the missing car keys. I have saved the day!

Caffeine races through my appendages now, igniting fine motor skills. I am signing field trip permission forms and making chicken wraps to put in lunch bags. Remember when kids ate plain old ‘sandwiches’? Remember white wonder bread that squished flat against the roof of your mouth? Remember bologna? My caffeinated brain is on overdrive now, contemplating the great questions of the universe while repeatedly pushing the cat off the kitchen counter and reminding my youngest to brush her teeth.

I am a domestic ninja; an unstoppable force that capably steers a ragtag band of merry misfits through their morning routines and pops them ably out the front door. I call them by name. I use my cheery-mother tone (the one that drives them all crazy). I feel love.

Before heading to work myself, I brew a fresh pot and fill up my GIANT Starbucks travel mug. It is so tall that it swallows ordinary teaspoons so I must stir in my sugar using the handle end of a carving knife. Armed with my morning coffee I am ready to take on the day.

Sure I am a little shaky and I suspect that I am beginning to speak at a pace normally reserved for auctioneers, but nothing in life is perfect. That said, my morning coffee comes very close!

Thank you old friend, for always being there.