I came to reading thanks to coffee

As a child I drank a lot of coffee. When I woke up every morning my mother would greet me with a steaming cup, and for my whole family that was the first drink of the day. I kept this habit of starting my day with a cup of coffee until I was eleven years old, when I had to go to an aunt's house to continue my studies in high school. At her place things were different, her custom was to drink coffee in the middle of the morning, so I had to go to class without my ration of the delicious black liquid. That new situation made me feel very uncomfortable at first, then I got used to it and finally I stopped drinking coffee. I took it out of my life.

The years went by and coffee was indifferent to me, it was not that I never drank it, occasionally I had a cup or two, but without it representing any special event.

When I arrived at the University things changed again. There was a fellow student who was very intelligent, a little strange in relation to the majority, because unlike the others he had the particularity that he was always reading books different from those recommended by the professors in the courses. He loved literature and knew many authors completely unknown to me.

One thing admirable about him was his ability to concentrate, he was able to read with the utmost attention in environments where the bustle was overwhelming, as was the case of the university cafeteria, or the benches located in the corridors between the classrooms.

Intrigued by his particular way of being, so different from the rest, I once dared to ask him how he did it, how he was able to read with such dedication while others were talking loudly about anything. She replied that she could do it for two reasons. The first, the attractiveness of the reading, there were readings that were so interesting that they could completely absorb the reader's attention. The other was the coffee mug. Having a small cup of coffee at hand while reading allowed him to enter a trance-like level of concentration, where nothing disturbed him and there was no situation that could take him out of the reading he was doing.

The willingness of this companion to respond to me motivated me to seek his friendship. I already knew how to approach him. So every time I saw him reading I would wait until he was about to finish his cup of coffee, wait a few minutes and ask for two cups, one for him and one for me. I would bring them to him and we would start chatting about the reading he was doing. That boy had within him the vocation to teach, to share his knowledge. He would talk to me about the fascinating world of his reading with kindness and enthusiasm. It never seemed to him that I was bothering him.

Soon after we became friends, he would recommend books to me and we would discuss them together. The meetings at the café became long gatherings, where, slowly sipping our cups of coffee, each one of us let his opinion be known about authors, themes, plots and conflicts of the books we were reading.

That experience changed me forever, I managed to find in reading a pleasure unknown to me. Since then, books have been great companions to find refuge and knowledge. Each reading has contributed to clear my path through life.

With that experience I also regained my taste for coffee and to link it with the great moments of life. I am not one of those who drink many cups a day, at most I drink two or three, but I enjoy each one intensely.

In my daily ritual I have two moments in which coffee is always present. One is to start my reading day, I usually read for three or four hours a day, and I start each session with my books with a cup of steaming coffee.

The other great moment is mid-afternoon. Every day my wife and I have a little ritual; at about four o'clock in the afternoon we pour two small cups of very hot coffee, to sip it slowly while we talk about the trivial and transcendental things in life.

This is my entry to the contest called by the Cinnamon Cup Coffee community to celebrate International Coffee Day.

Thanks for your time.