Where I drank Ryusendo Coffee — “Original Blend” and what I was thinking at the time: a fictoir

I drank it in the living room, while thinking I should take guitar lessons to help me snap out of my funk. I drank it in the kitchen while talking to my mom on the phone. She sounded good and said Ben was still in Guatemala and was doing well. I drank it while looking for the Spiderman 2 DVD, which was overdue. I drank it standing up, because I swear to you that there are no chairs in my house. I drank it while giving serious thought to finding some kind of spiritual teacher, because as I mentioned earlier, I was in a funk and maybe a little “soul questing” was in order. Perhaps I could expand my heart by becoming a master of the tea ceremony, is a thought that crossed my mind. I drank it while looking out the window at the kids playing tag in the courtyard below and thinking it was only a matter of time before someone slipped on the wet concrete by the fountain and chipped a tooth or worse. I drank it while thinking about how my boss inserts the word “well” between about every fourth word he utters, which is I think an odd linguistic tic. I drank it while remembering that I wasn’t wearing any underwear beneath my ratty pajamas, which were (and still are) caked with dried sweat from the fever I’d had for the past two days. I drank it while doubting whether I would ever have enough money to buy a house. I drank it while thinking that sometimes it felt as if my life was on the verge of spinning out of control and that there was no way I’d be able to save my wife and kids from crashing with me, whatever “crashing” means. Collapsing into squalor? Adopting poor grammar? Becoming an alcoholic?

But then the caffeine and sugar began to take hold and I got to thinking that maybe what I needed wasn’t a spiritual teacher but just more interaction with friends and family. I drank it while thinking about how well-defined my biceps (and triceps and deltoids) were and how my body seemed to be getting younger, even if my face was aging alarmingly fast, especially around the eyes. I sipped and wondered if wanting to wear a moisturizing mask at night was normal for a 35-year-old father of two. I drank it while laying plans for a huge wall painting that I would begin working on next weekend and which would involve primary colors and lots of little details scratched on with a black fountain pen. I drank it while suspecting that my kids were gifted and would probably become rich and buy me a house. I drank it while trying to convince myself that inserting coins into a vending machine, pushing a button and retrieving a can of coffee did not have to be spiritually inferior to preparing a cup of thick green tea with a whisk. Then I finished it, knocked out a hundred push-ups, winked at myself in the mirror and took a hot bath.

When David Cady was eleven, he was forced to write "I am a worm of the earth, but I'm still a good kid" one-hundred times after getting caught stealing Star Wars figures from a store called Clown Town. He has not stolen since.

COMMENTS:
Discuss with other coffee lovers. (8)