Higher Ground

“I have measured out my life in coffee spoons”, TS Elliott

I am an unabashed coffee drinker. I have a cup first thing in the morning.

Coffee is not just some brown liquid that we stand in line for and pay too much money. Coffee is what makes people palatable. If there was no such thing as coffee I think capitalism in America would come to an end.

I tried once to detox from caffeine and it did not go so well for me.

I had a horrible headache for days and didn’t want to get out of bed. Eventually I gave up and started drinking coffee again. Admittedly, I used to drink almost a pot a day until I decided it was just way too much for my body and my heart to handle. I now drink a religious 2 cups of coffee in the morning and possibly one in the afternoon.

And don’t get me started on bad coffee. I swear, some fast food restaurants I’ve been to make the worst coffee on the planet. It’s not even black it’s more like a sickly brownish yellow that has absolutely no flavor. It is so bitter it will make your taste buds fall off.

The best cup of coffee I’ve ever had in my life was while visiting a friend of mine in New Mexico. Her coffee was French press and she heated her milk in a pan on the stove. It was the most decadent and delightful cup of coffee I have ever tasted! I would drive 500 miles just to drink her coffee again. How many of you may feel the same way about the best cup of Joe you’ve had in your life time?

Once while on a trip with my niece to Cabo San Lucas we were stuck five days without power following a hurricane. The only thing that kept us going was the fact that we had stopped and bought a package of Starbucks instant Via coffee. It is a micro brew and it is some of the best coffee you will ever taste. Anyway, while stuck in Cabo with no electricity and no running water, we paid a server two dollars every morning to heat us one cup of hot water on the propane stove so that we could share one cup of coffee. I never even went through detox and I never had a headache from cutting back on caffeine. I still treasure the pleasure of that one cup of coffee in the morning. It was pure decadence!

I found my favorite coffee quite by accident one day. I was out of coffee at home which could’ve been a tragedy have I not made a quick stop at a local drugstore. I decided to buy the coffee in the prettiest bag maybe because I like the color yellow. It was a dark French roast. It has since become my staple and I’ve actually had people when they come stay with me from out of town want to know what type of coffee it is. If you can get it even at the local drugstore I would say it was a win-win!

When you think about it, coffee is so much more. When new friends or fellow workers want a break, they all say, “let’s meet for coffee”. Coffee has probably brought more people together than anything else in the world. Sharing a cup of Joe seems to be what keeps the world ticking along. There’s nothing better to soothe the soul and refresh the brain that a good old fashion cup of Joe. Stories have been told, and ideas have been shared along the way.