Addiction

Laura Gunn

My mother was a smoker. Not a casual, occasional, ?I like a cigarette after I eat? smoker, but a dyed-in-the-wool, hard-edged, long-term, nail-in my coffin committed kind of smoker. ?I don?t even want to know people who don?t smoke!? she once declared when the only seats available on her flight to Costa Rica were non-smoking. Thinking this was the most ridiculous statement I?d ever heard- especially since I don?t smoke- I laughed at this absurdity.

But time has passed, Mother is gone and I realize that things change, but in reality remain the same. I, too, have an addiction . . . . .coffee. I love the smell of coffee when I hold the too warm cup in my cold hands and breathe in the aroma. Sometimes I just hold the cup and breathe, letting the heat and flavor envelop and surround me. Sometimes it speaks to me of distant places: Ethiopia, Sumatra, Jamaica. .

The sociability of coffee is a powerful drug. Friends gathering to chat or people leaning back in chairs after a big dinner to end the day. Can you imagine celebrating dawn with a Big Red? I need the essence of coffee.

My day begins with a cup on my vanity placed there by my husband. A little ritual, but it says so much. I care about you, I?m here for you. Let me make the day a little better.

Perhaps it isn?t the coffee. Perhaps it?s just a way to dream, to share a moment. In this too busy world, perhaps coffee is the Beware Bump sign telling us to proceed with caution- and take life a little more slowly ? if only for a minute.