Some say lovers come and go, but true friends and family are forever.
I certainly would add something to that phrase, like so:
Lovers come and go, but true friends, family and a good cup of coffee, are forever.
It's true though, I mean, I was thinking, more like reminiscing, about a series of very recent events, personal stuff related to what I've been through this past few weeks, and I came to realize several things, and one of the most significant is that coffee is not only a huge part of my life, is the most unselfish thing I have in my life.
Coffee is my friend, the one I always turn to when I'm sad, happy, sick, depressed. It is the one companion I can always rely on and won't be judgmental or obnoxious about anything I say or do because that's not its job, on the contrary, a good cup of coffee is meant to give me a sense of fulfillment and reassurance and security. While it last, every zip that goes into my mouth is filled with deep flavors that are meant for me to be more alive and happy to be so.
One of my favorite brands...
To be more specific, as I'm still recovering from Covid, with very persisting pneumonia, I was laying in bed with nausea and trouble breathing, I could not rest, I was getting desperate. So I got up, and start walking around the house looking for something to distract me from all that sickness I felt. Then I found the dried coffee beans from our last year's harvest, so I said:
Pull yourself together and start peeling these bad boys and think of what they'll become soon enough.
So I did, I sat in the kitchen and started to peel them, one bean at a time. An hour later, I was done, there weren't too many beans so it was a simple task, except for that thin and very stubborn layer each bean has, my God, that was enough to lose my cool, so it stayed on.
I decided to set them aside for another day, then, out of the blue, I was roasting them in a small pan, at low heat and a wooden spatula, softly tossing them from one side to the other, from them to get the heat equally without burning. As they got browner by the second, I turned the heat up while my little sister was sharing a memory of our dad:
Do you remember him saying that after peeling them, we had to soak them again for them to lose that last layer? I never did that, did you?
The last layer was already coming off!
Nope, I did not, and it was too late to do that so I thought, this is going to be a disaster!. Then I heard the first pop, then the second, classic sign that the beans are roasting fine and are almost done, and then it happened, the last layer started to come off and the beans were free, the whole house impregnated with a smell from the heavens, I wish you were there to smell it.
At that point, I decided to leave them be and cool them to store them and ground them another day, for a special occasion and a special post, but I just had to ground them, I needed one more favor from them, so I put them on the blender and started to round those beautiful freshly roasted beans, the result was this, my house still smells like coffee.
After I was done with that, I was breathing better, I felt lighter, and all those feelings of sickness and helplessness were gone, replaced with warm thoughts about what I'm going to do with this marvelous home processed ground coffee and my plans for this year harvest.
Maybe I sound crazy to some people, but you see, lovers don't come and go for me, they just don't come (it sounds worse than it actually is) and I have a few good friends but they won't be there always, they have their own lives you know, same happens with my family. Coffee, however, coffee will endure, it will always be there, even when I die, many many years from now, at my funeral, people will be zipping their coffee as they say goodbye to me, it will be there comforting my loved ones as it comforted me in life.
There's writing in the bible that says:
Love is not rude, is not selfish, and does not get upset with others. Love does not count up wrongs that have been done. Love takes no pleasure in evil but rejoices over the truth. Love patiently accepts all things. It always trusts, always hopes, and always endures.
Change "Love" with "Coffee" and you'll understand what I mean...
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