Coffee Burn

Have you ever thought about coffee? It's 4 am and I find myself thinking about coffee. I suppose it is odd to be thinking about coffee in a flat where everyone drinks tea, all the time. In the middle of an entire country of tea drinkers. Yet I despise tea. Nothing special about it if you ask me. Tastes like water and grass. There's also a lemony sort of taste sometimes. Altough for me, it is more like a lemony sort of feeling. You see, food and drinks more often than not, evoke memories for me. Feelings ans sensations, mend and combine with the singular experience of the simplest meal. And tea, brings to me, one of the most despicable memories of my childhood. Remarkably enough, it's also one of the earliest ones, it is true that we sheldom recall the good things in our past, and yet the sad, painful moments stay with us, like an irritating burn, that no longer quite hurts, but it's still there as a constant reminder not to get to close to the stove. I cannot recall how old I am, but certainly younger than six, for I am still in kinderganden. It's around 5pm, and it's tea-time in a country where there is no such time, or at least few places around here are in the habit of having tea at this particular time. Unfortunatly I'm currently in one of such places. And there's a small yellow plate beneath a round white bread with butter in it, next to a orange mug, right in front of me. Inside the mug, lies my greatest fear... or not. Sometimes it is orange juice. And sometimes it isn't. They never tell us. And they never bother to ask. After all who would bother to inform the children of the contents of their cups? much less question them on their preferences. The strange thing, is that I cannot, for all that I've tried, and believe me I have tried, remember what the tea tastes like. I know it is bad, for certain, and that I detest it, but certanly I should have seen feet to recall the exact nature of the taste of such a detested brew, right? Apparently no. In fact, the really important thing about this memory is not the tea or my ultimate dislike of it, but intead that precise moment, right before I pick up the mugg, in which the contents of said mugg are still a mistery to me. They are indeed misterious the working of the human mind, for altough I cannot for the life of me remember the taste of the tea, or of the orange juice for that matter, I can recall with amaizing detail, my precise feelings in those few moments before picking up the mugg. Indecision... denial... fear, nay, pure terror... comtempt, hum, hate, for my caretakers for making me drink it... inevitability (is that a feeling? It certanly feels like one, it feels like being trapped, like having no choice, like knowing of the things that hurt you and having no control over them and no power to stop them. And those are the feelings I associate with tea. On the reverse, I love coffee, such a deep, smooth drink. Milk and sugar for sweetness. II always have my coffee with lots of milk and suggar. I suppose the coffe prudes out there would say I don't like coffee at all, if I don't drink it pure, but I do. I love the sour, bitter feeling it leaves on the back of one's mouth, after a mouthfull of sweetness. When I have coffee, I don't recall a specific memory, but intead a set of memories. Memories of breakfast in strange places. I first had coffee with my mom, I have no recolection of that first time, altough I guess I should, but I don't, I know it was with my mom, because I only stay in hotels with my mom. And it was in hotels the only times I had coffee as a child. Amidst baskets of croissants, juggs of all the juices imaginable, cakes, little packets of butter and jams, honey, different bread and so many fruit,yogurts, milk with chocolate dust in it, with cereals, or just a tall glass of perfect ice cold milk. My mom always made sure we had a good earthy breakfast in the hotels, at home, there was of course not such concern, even if we skipped breakfast, we could always eat something troughout the day, but during vacations, we would often go entire mornings with nothing but our breakfast, sometimes we wouldn't even have luch. Then again, my mom was always good at saving and travelling alone with four kids, the biggest expense is always food, so she would always tell us to eat a lot at breakfast so we would be full for the rest of the day. Oh, there would be cookies in the car, but we never really ate them, we're all quite used to filling up at breakfast during vacations, I dare say, it wouldn't be vacation without that feeling of almost bursting throughout the entire morning. Even when camping, breakfast was always the biggest affair, nothing like at home, where everyone would fend for itself, during vacation, mother always made certain we had a piece of everything we liked, and were all fill up until at least the end of the afternoon, when we would eat a couple of cookies, just to tied us up until dinner, because when we skipped lunch, during vacations it was always to save up for a big dinner out. Not a bad way to spend your summer. Not a bad way at all. Besides I think mother liked that we were all a bit drowsy because of all the food, made us quieter and slower. Yeah, she liked that, you would too, if you had to travel hours and hours locked in a car with two rowdy toddlers, one moddy almost-adult-teenager, and my annoying brooding self... I guess most people would dislike those times, or at least it would be expected for most people to hold no long lost love for the food they consumed when trying to eat for a battalion. But I'm hardly most people, I adored it, all the variety, the enormous quantities... in a household, where you eat whatever is available regardless of personal taste, and in whatever quantity you can get your hands in, (which is never much, you would be surprised at how fast food vanishes) it is hardly surprising that I would appreciate thing like variety and quantity, in the most challenging topic of food. I guess what I liked best, was the feeeling of getting to choose. And coffee truly symbolises that choice for me, I always went to a lot of trouble for my coffee, well my mom went to a lot of trouble for my cooffe, she would often have coffee at home, and I seriously doubt she has a the connection with coffee that I do, still when in the hotels she would let me have some coffee the same way she did, with milk and sugar. Much less milk and suggar than me I might add, but she would do my coffee at the same time she she did hers, and then give it to me, and I would spend a good ten minutes, waiting for it to cool down and adding more milk and more suggar untill it was perfect to my taste. A large difference from my fast, mostly non existent breakfast during the rest of the year. A bowl of cereal on the weekends, in the middle of the morning, I always sleep late on the weekends, my mom encouraged it, gave some moments of piece and quiet to watch Bewitch reruns on TV. Some bread with butter, cheese or ham, only on the day after a supermarket trip, on the days where I'd classes late or overslept. Some cake of the way to school, in the few mornings of the weeks when I hadn't spend all my money in books. Yes more often then not I skipped it entirely. Then again I always had that attitude towards food, and I dare say mom encouraged it, not to starve, obviously, there was never lack of food exactly, although if you didn't volunteer to go to the supermarket, she more often than not, wouldn't go. But it was more the feeling of relaxation towards food, and food schedules, for example, every fifyteen days at my father's place we would eat on schedule, really on scheedule, not large amouts, but I suppose I always felt they were compared to the food back home, specially breakfast again, always toast, my father loves toasted bread, all kinds of toasted bread, and bragging about his toaster, throgh out my life he has had many toasters but he brags about then always in the same exact way, and, at least for me, the bread has always tasted the same. Maybe I should feel more grateful towards it... He was trying, so very hard, to give us schedules, a routine, a sence of order, that I am quite sure, he was well aware mother never gave us. But I am afraid, he failed he simply did not understood. There was a method to her madness, at least I think there was, we turned out okay, so I believe I'm right. She gave as order, well a sence of it, but it was a a different sence of order, one father could never understand, which was in the end one of the causes for their divorce, contrasting personalities, you know? Yes, I should be grateful towards it, but I'm not, nothing I can do about it, I've long ago accepted the fact that I cannot change my feelings in relation to people or places or facts, they are as they are and trying to make myself grief for a death, or feel shame for an action, or love for a person, ("saudade" such a portuguese word, and such a strange feeling, strange for I feel it more for my cat than for my family and friends. Odd. Then again I was always odd, which explains why I miss my cat, he never asks if I miss him. I always assumed he know how much I do). Trying to change one's feelings is a useless endeavour. I feel what I feel, feelings are as unchanging as the sea. And since I'm not of a religious disposition, and cannot part the water or walk over them, I'm afraid I'll just have to let them be, as they are, free of guilt, or shame, or regrets. That's me. Now that I think about it I guess I put so much acceptance into this, into accepting my own emotions, my own actions, indeed my own self, that I leave none such acceptance for the topic of food. If it cannot be enjoyable then I see no point to it. I cook very rarely, yet I enjoy it tremendously, that is because I only cook when for enjoyment. In fact when finished cooking I often forget to eat the food, the pleasure was so often in the making of it. If someone were to ask me my secret for the perfect diet, I would give them my case, I never vary more than five kilos, that's five more or five less than my original weight. Which is very appropriate for my size and body shape. My father says I'm too thin, then again, fathers always say that. No one who has seen me naked ever complained and I dare say they were in a good position to judge. Perfect diet tip number one, eat only when you want. I like to call this one the Mom's rule, this was after all how my mom's policy to food. You are not hungry? then why eat? go do something else more valuable with your time. Money is food. If your eating all the time you won't give food the proper value, there are kids starving in Africa you know? Want to eat? go cook! do I look like the maid? It's your food, you want to eat it, you go and get it from the supermarket and you cook it yourself, otherwise you just eat whatever I make (which more often than not, includes such delicacies as peas and eggs and any king of pasta ever invented to mankind with turkey sausages from the can) or whatever is around ( not much, if you didn't go to the supermarket I'm afraid). Hell I always tought she would make us kill our own meat and plant our own potatoes, if she could! *This goal is now closer than ever to completation, with my mom's recent purchase of a farm, yep a farm, can you see me in a farm? heck, you probably can too, sitting beneath a tree, reading a book and hording some sheep.* Either way, back to coffee, it was only in hotels, during vacation, that I ever had coffee. Not anymore, of course, now I can have coffee anytime, and temarkably enough, it still feels the same, every single time I take a sip of my steaming hot mugg, more often at the end of a hard day, than at the beguining of one, it still tastes like confort, not a home confort, but a confort away from home, in strange lands, aventure full places. Coffee tastes like luxury for me, reward of sorts in a sense, but not an addiction, like some people refer to it, not at all! Instead it is someting that you would not have everyday, and altough I love the flavour, and have tried before, I cannot have it everyday, not even once a week, the mere sense of predicabilaty and my coffee is ruined for me. For me Coffee is a feeling. It's the feeling of freedom, of independance, of memories long gone of happy, sweet breakfasts and sour, absent ones. Of choosing one's own fate... of making one's own path in life, as one makes one's own coffee.