In Praise of Coffee – and Also Me
(And goodbye for now)
“I am on a diet.” Thus announced James Beard, the famous “Dean of American Cooking”, in one of his weekly articles. He went on to say, “To someone who has spent more than seventy years eating as he pleased and where he pleased, Prohibition has come as a shock.” No longer would he load his plate with the cream, salt, butter, cheeses, sauces, and oils he loved and which gave him so much pleasure. Now, greatly overweight and suffering from serious health issues, this 300-pound bear of a man was suddenly confronted with a crisis. His doctors gave him strict orders for what he could and could not eat.
But James Beard had the right attitude. Instead of lamenting about his restrictions, he began exploring a number of low-fat, low-salt alternatives, substituting herb- and spice-based seasonings for his meals. There was a happy ending. By changing his eating habits and establishing new, healthier patterns, he continued to enjoy and write about foods for many more years.
I am not on a diet. Fortunately, I have no immediate, health-based reason for losing weight. However, I am going to do something that is comparable in its impact. I am going to give up my morning coffee for thirty days. Now, this may sound like a pretty unimportant and very minor announcement but, for me, it definitely is not trivial. Let me explain.
Beginning each day with several cups of coffee has been a daily pleasure all of my adult life. I cannot remember when it was not. For most years, there may have been only two or three days when, due to unusual circumstances, I did not begin my day with coffee. Starting each day with several cups of hot coffee – black, strong, and bitter, or with cream and sugar, or (my current preference) with no sugar and only a tiny bit of creamer – has been one of the few constants in a life which has seen massive changes over the years. Indeed, I devoted lengthy passages in my first expat book to discussing this change in my lifestyle after I began the expat transition in 2004. Back then, for a period of a few weeks, I had no morning coffee to transition me into wakefulness with a caffeine jolt. I even described the elation I felt when, two months after I arrived, a package arrived from America with real coffee, coffee filters, and other implements for making drip coffee.
Looking back, I can see that beginning the day with coffee has been a morning ritual for many years. Perhaps the keyword is “ritual”; I go through the same motions in the same order to get the same results each time. A fundamental element of my start-up routine is to wake up and immediately make a cup of Starbucks coffee (which I can now purchase locally or online). It is real drip coffee, freshly made according to my preferences. After making the coffee, another important element of my morning routine is to then sit quietly, sipping the coffee and relishing the beginning of a new day. Sometimes, I read and think; sometimes, I enjoy the coffee while I am working on my computer or planning my day; sometimes, I look out my window and watch the city wake up.
In the past, when I was child-free, I would take my coffee and go outside to sit on the balcony. For some reason, I have been lucky enough to have a balcony in many of the places I have lived. For me, a view from a balcony overlooking a city - any city - is inspiring; it makes the world seem larger but friendly and civilized. It might be a wooden deck of a very nice house overlooking a back yard in an suburban setting, the second floor of a rental house (my first balcony as an adult), the third floor (Apartment 302) in my first residence as a foreign teacher, several balconies since then, or my current view from the balcony of the 18th Floor Homestead. From all of them, coffee in hand and with no company, it was a suitable time and place to reflect on all the changes in my life and on the current objectives I wanted to pursue.
Presently, with two roommates (wife and son) who jealously cherish every last moment of sleep, I have learned that discretion calls for me to stay in my den office with the door closed and to remain as soundless as possible while they sleep those few precious extra minutes. They enjoy their sleep while I enjoy my coffee as a solitary pleasure.
Early each morning, as I quietly perform my morning ritual of lovingly, carefully boiling water, preparing the filter, measuring the coffee grounds, and watching the hot water dripping through the grounds to make that marvelous, life-giving elixir - I call it my chemical sunshine - I am doing more than merely starting a new day. With this ritual, I am adding to a long, long string of days – some good, some not-so-good. But all of those small increments cumulatively formed the person I have become and the lifestyle I enjoy today. That marvelous coffee aroma, so familiar and so tantalizing, connects me to other days and other cups of coffee – and to the homes, friends, jobs, relationships, cars, pets, and hobbies from the times and places when I was enjoying those former cups of coffee. Likewise, my favorite coffee cup from New Orleans is also accompanied by good memories and associations; it always makes me smile. An old memory from years past just struck me. In another time and another life, my fishing partner Jerry and I loved to get an early start for our favorite fishing spots. I am remembering how good the coffee tasted at a small country diner where we stopped for breakfast before setting out for a day on the water. A lovely, peaceful memory of a time and place that no longer exist.
So… after I have just explained why my morning coffee is such a valued and important ritual, why did I begin by saying that I am going to give up my morning coffee for thirty days? Yes, when my current coffee supply at home is exhausted, I will go coffee-free for 30 days. First, let me assure you again that there is no health-based reason for this decision. (And, I admit that I am going to stop writing at this point of my first draft to make another cup of coffee before continuing; I haven’t quit yet.)
Why? The reason is simple enough. Although I have no health issues currently that coffee might affect and I do not drink excessive amounts of coffee each day, I have decided that it has become too much of a habit - and that’s my concern. My comfortable ritual has become an intractable habit. Periodically, we need to review our lifestyle choices and, in doing so, to consider what other options and activities we might be sacrificing because of our current patterns. Specifically, I need to wonder if my time of sipping and reflecting might be better spent on other things. The economists call it the opportunity cost.
But this exploration isn’t only a mental exercise; it requires a physical action to make it meaningful. Expats inherently have such investigations because they are reinventing their life. As they decide what personal items to put on each shelf and counter in a new home, they must consciously choose what to retain and what to abandon. Everyone everywhere, even my parents who lived in the same house for sixty years (with their backyard deck overlooking the peaceful countryside of my boyhood home), has this daily opportunity to reinvent their lives. But expats have it forced upon them by the physical entry into a different culture.
Accompanying the act of giving up coffee for a few weeks will be the satisfaction of proving that I still retain sufficient control of my life that I can voluntarily relinquish an established habit – even one that is also a cherished relic from my old life. I want to prove to myself that morning coffee is a choice and a pleasure, not an unthinking habit. In doing so, I will confirm that I can still choose new directions, large and small, for my life. I want to show that I still control my life. Morning coffee is not important; controlling my life is.
In two or three weeks, when my current supplies are consumed, I will stop completely and without a gradual withdrawal. When I resume my morning coffee ritual after thirty days of being coffee-free, I expect to really, truly enjoy it again. By then, we should be completely past the summer heat. Boy, that coffee will taste good on those crisp, cool autumn mornings on the balcony of the 18th Floor Homestead! This pleasure will be enhanced by the recollection of other crisp, cool autumn mornings in other places and times, for example coffee made over a small fire on a camping trip in the Colorado Rockies - yet another companion and life long gone. Moreover, I expect to relish the coffee even more because of its absence in my life for one month and because it is, once again, proven to be a choice.
So, while this may initially seem a rather trivial subject as you read these words, please understand: Giving up my morning coffee for thirty days is not a big deal. What is a very big deal, however, is the ability to control my habits, even the tiny little details like this daily ritual of making coffee. More importantly, by extension, if I can do this with my morning coffee, I can do it with other habits as well – bigger and more significant habits and daily behaviors. While examining any habits to suspend, we can also consider what other things we might do with that time. But, I repeat, this thought exercise must be accompanied by action.
What do you think? What personal entrenched habit would you choose to give up for thirty days to prove that you are still in control of your habits – and your life? Despite the initial impression of being trivial and superficial, temporarily giving up coffee, I realized that it really wasn’t. But the key is to take action, not merely treat this as a mental exercise.
And… as I became more metaphysical about it, I even began to dissect some of my habitual ways of thinking, not merely habitual ways of doing. This, in turn, led to a deeper examination of some of the primary, subconscious elements from which personality is formed. Socialization, it’s not just for breakfast anymore. “Heavy,” as Marty McFly would say. “Shifting gravitational fields,” was Doc Brown’s hypothesis. Possibly. We are definitely getting into some serious self-examination waters here. Stay tuned…
And, if this homespun homily has moved you to explore some of your own deeply embedded habits of behavior and thinking, please consider a short visit to my Buy Me A Coffee page to express your gratitude so I can afford my morning coffee… even if I am deferring that pleasure temporarily.
Public Announcement (for those who have read this far):
This will be my last post for a few weeks. I am leaving for a road trip in a few days and I have chosen to leave my computer behind. Yes, I know I am the guy who promotes working remotely. Indeed, I have been nominated as the poster boy for the digital nomad. But I haven’t had a decent vacation for a long, long time. Too long. Children, can you say burnout? Even last summer’s digital hiatus for two months was spent at home, here at the 18th Floor Homestead. So, dear readers, you will have to get along without my weekly offerings of expat enlightenment, leavened with attempts at humor and unabashed alliteration, front and rear. As I said, I won’t be carrying along my computer on this trip which is loosely scheduled to last for three or four weeks. Going to visit old friends and old sites and tour some new spots, including a few days on the beach to see if the breakers are still as mesmerizing as ever. No computer; I will keep a trip journal with - gasp - an actual pen and a paper notebook. Color me Hemingway. Stay tuned but goodbye for now.