A French Press and Life Then

My eyes are blurry at this early hour and I stumble downstairs into the kitchen. I am holding my breath that the girls stay sleeping so I can score this simple solitude.  I set the kettle for hot water to make coffee in our French Press which we love so dearly.  I've only broken it once so far and it has been several years of grinding beans, (almost) boiling hot water and then pouring over, stirring with a wooden spoon and steeping. I am waiting sluggishly for four minutes of steeping to pass.  

I realize I have had the green coffee bean grinder from Starbucks since I lived single and wild in Denver, Colorado.  I bought it on some rare outing for coffee and a breakfast confection in my paycheck to paycheck years. 

I bought it when I was young and unencumbered and had the time and passion to brew special coffee...to grind it too.  

Because the coffee was the biggest thing going in my mornings then.   

Because grinding the beans, the loud pulsing whirr of it reminded me of living in Chicago, Illinois on Wilson Street in the best apartment I ever had.  From my bedroom every morning I could hear my neighbors Art and Steve grinding their own beans like clockwork.  They were an awesome couple and were so cool and artistic and fun that of course they would grind their own coffee beans. 

I've been missing them lately and wish I could track them down but my memory is faulty and even though we spent an elegant Christmas together one year with my dad and their friend Callie, even though they ran to me when in the middle of the night my fish tank caught fire and I was afraid, even though they were probably grown up and I just was not yet....I cannot know their lives today.  

But I have my coffee.  And I will grind it, and pour it and stir it and steep it and that will have to be enough for this morning.



Thanks to the Extraordinary Ordinary for motivating this post as part of her JUST WRITE Tuesday.  I sat down at my cluttered desk at long last.  It has been awhile.

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