Creative Endeavors

A cup of coffee this morning, my first cup in four days and it is good, I have missed it something terribly. Bad headaches and withdrawal on the first couple of days, certainly did add to my misery. We all have our addictions in life, mine over the years have varied, but this is right now, and right now it is coffee.

I just drink too much of it, and it is pulling my health down, something had to be done. My addictions are legendary, at least in my mind, they are. My life is littered with the all the pitfalls of addiction that came and took something away, and left very little in return. It used to be nicotine, chemical dependencies, and to some extent, in my youth, sex.

Now late in life, it is coffee.

One more monster I have to deal with, an old friend, that came to visit and stayed with me at a early age. I began drinking coffee at the Do-Nut Shop when I was 12 years old on my first paper route, and continued right on thru to this point in my life. I suppose that over time, I have consumed an ocean of this exotic wonderful Colombian brew.

This morning is different. I am limiting myself to just two cups and that is all.

This morning there is a new regime on my street. I used to gulp it down, post-haste, something akin to an old dog on a half-eaten weaner, whoosh and it was gone. This morning however, I am slow to take it in, I savor its richness on my tongue, I savor its warmth, I give it a short respite, so that I might enjoy what it has to offer just a little more, before I swallow.

I am doing my best to enjoy my addiction and not allow it to consume me any more. Learning or rather re-learning the sweet pleasure it affords and at the same time, limiting my intake of its intoxicating measure.  We all have our demons to deal with and once again I find myself doing battle with one of mine.

John, my recently departed friend in Arizona, used to make it something just short of a witches brew, a dark elixir the color of oil sand tar, that would eat the rust off the side of a pot. He would laugh, “Ya gotta put some makin’s in it, or the brew isn’t worth drinking” was his expression as I recall. He then he would dump four scoops of coffee into a 10 cup mix and hit brew.

What came out was something resembling the color of asphalt and as strong as you could imagine, battery acid comes readily to mind. A little too much for me, I am a two scooper kind of guy and not much more than that.  He seems gone so long now, I miss him, and I yearn for his company.

I guess to live in some respects, is to suffer.  In order to survive, it would seem you would have to put some meaning in the suffering.  Two cups per day in my opinion is pathetic, I surely want and possibly “need more.”

But it would be more prudent to limit the intake and live a little while longer.

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