“As long as there was coffee in the world, how bad could things be?” ~ Cassandra Clare, City of Ashes

This has been an eventful season on the East Coast.

The key ritual every day, that first inhale of steam from a fresh-brewed cup, brings me very essential bliss. Some days, that moment is as close as I’m going to come to practicing yoga. And yet, sometimes, feeling the deep satisfaction of inhaling the roast, a smell as ancient to me as the black sea turtle himself, there is no need to look further.

My practice, your practice, the stars and moon, everything is perfect. It is all a gift. Something in that steam, the sanctuary it brings, grants access to full (albeit momentary) realization.

“It doesn’t matter where you’re from—or how you feel…there’s always peace in a strong cup of coffee.”

~ Gabriel Bá, Daytripper

Who are we, now that we are growing into this post-apocalyptic time? Assuming we indeed are going forward with life and not that the Mayans were just a few days off, it is time to look deep into ourselves, our relationship with the concept of “holiday,” and into this most essential of beverages: coffee. We need to delve, cup in hand and explore.

“No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee’s frothy goodness.”  ~ Sheik Abd-al-Kadir

This understanding must begin with bowing in the direction of an overview, providing a vague allusion toward having completed some semblance of research. Coffee drinking dates back all the way to when it first began happening.

“No matter what historians claimed, BC really stood for “Before Coffee.”

~ Cherise Sinclair, Master of the Mountain

Studies into coffee’s history have revealed innumerable things to countless people. But for me, there is simply no future in history.

People since that time have consumed coffee every time they drank it. Contemporary coffee drinkers inhale the stuff at a fantastically brilliant pace, if that’s the phrase I’m after, and the overarching sense of reprieve attained in blowing onto a hot cup of black love will remain part of our lives until the very last sip is downed.

If you’re anything Iike me, and I know I am, you fully intend to pound the stuff until three days after they pack dirt in your face. It is a search for the ultimate, where every stone in the path fully embodies it’s own flawless nature.

“Life is a beautiful and endless journey in search of the perfect cup.” ~ Barbara A. Daniels

So especially now, if not some other time, we need a list of reasons why coffee drinking is beyond good. Why this essential beverage is so, well, essential. We need an envoy with excuses, carrying a ration of rationalizations. The black acid baths must continue unquestioned, for compromise is drowsiness and drowsiness is a small death.

So here they are in brief, five ways Coffee can save Christmas:

1)  Tree light untangling relief. New lights are only a few bucks, and hey, there’s great coffee in that little shop next to the hardware store.

2) The stuff is brilliant as an eggnog vehicle/smokescreen. I’m just saying.

3) “Give mommy 10 minutes, she’s having her coffee.” If you’re not using this one already, congratulations. You’ve just paid for the article a few times over. Coffee time is sacred, and proper appreciation calls for a temporary cone of quiet. Even kids get it. That’s why when I had my kid, I used to take in like 30-45 cups a day.

4)  It’s a very handy quick watering device. Coffee grown cold, tree water looking a low, feeling a little too lazy to hit the kitchen? Many conifers are acid loving. Get a hickory if you can, they thrive on the stuff.

5) True fact: nobody ever strangled a cat while holding a cup of mud.

And if you want a bonus, look to our girl Josephine:

“He was my cream, and I was his coffee –
And when you poured us together, it was something.”

~ Josephine Baker

Coffee is love, you guys, everyone knows that.

So this season, as you ever so slowly slip from optimistic and content, through slightly beleaguered and toward completely blowing a gasket, take heart!  The right cup is only an arm’s length away, and the more we imbue coffee with healing powers, the faster and cheaper we are truly healed.

Mud in your eye, my friend.

~

Ed: Bryonie Wise

 

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