Coffee Like a Lover

"Tell me about the voices," he said. "I heard nothing myself. From what direction did they come?"

"Over there, beside the fireplace," she answered.

"Would you like some tea? I think there is tea."

"Oh, coffee. Could I have some coffee? I don't think I'm likely to sleep."

- Muriel Spark, The Comforters

Isn't it terribly English of the Baron to offer tea to Caroline, who's just fled a religious centre (not a nunnery, not a retreat), has separated from her husband, and is now suffering delusions - hearing the clacks of typewriter keys and a voice narrating her very thoughts! Take comfort in tea. It is in character of the Baron to think so: he's a man of affected intellectualism, calling the sections of his bookshop "Histor-ay, Biograph-ay, Theolog-ay," and addressing everyone as "my dear". But only coffee is up for the job. This is coffee as antidote to madness. What else to clear her head in this fix? They've already had Curaçao - that didn't help. Coffee as realignment. Coffee to reconnect with your own synapses, to reset the senses and solidify reality in the forefront.

- Benjamin Obler, Top 10 Fictional Coffee Scenes

I relish afternoon tea. I sip it after 4:00. It doesn't interfere with sleep. It's easy on the stomach after supper. At the end of a long, busy day, it's soothing.

But for a guard against insanity, I prefer coffee so rich it sits in the cup like soup. After awakening from heaven knows what in my dreaming world, coffee beckons like a stop light, steering the traffic through my brain in a reassuring, orderly manner. I've always had a vivid imagination. My brain is like a busy road. At night, things run wild on it. Although I don't take any of these visions too seriously, my nightly adventures can leave me groggy and slow to engage the real world. There's nothing like an excellent cup of brew to prepare me for the day ahead.

Lately, I've been making my coffee in a French press -- strong as a thunderstorm and full of the flavors held back by a paper filter in a drip machine. It's a different cup than we usually drink in this county. I grind the beans fresh for it, too.

This coffee wraps itself around the senses and clings like a lover. If you ever get the chance, you should try it this way -- freshly ground, brewed exactly right at double strength by hand.

To learn how to make it with a French press, follow this link to watch a short Starbucks video: Brewing with a Coffee Press. (The picture buttons directly below the video window offer a Coffee Press option)

A Great Cup of Coffee

He was my cream,

and I was his coffee -

And when you poured us together,

it was something.

~Josephine Baker

You knew it was coming sometime. At the Moonboat Cafe we believe in great coffee. That means we're going to help you learn the secrets of the best brews.

This morning I awoke late and groggy. But I revived myself with the most delicious blend of beans in my French press. The simple things in life, delivered with excellence, can be pure delight.

While I sip my second cup, I'm sending you a gift. Follow this link for a short Starbucks video on how to make great coffee: Learn About Coffee.

Writer's Spring

The house is full of people these days. Lots of cheery voices, laughter, and piles of stuff. I'm doing the cooking, and it feels like I'm running a cafeteria. In the afternoons we go out and "do something". Yesterday, we took a hike in a state park 25 minutes from our house. Many of the trails are closed because of winter storm damage. But this park was open.

We trudged up mountainsides and ogled waterfalls with snow still dusting their slate-gray shoulders. Large portions of the trail were covered with snow or ice. A couple of places, I could not find my footing. We still heard no spring songs from the birds. The woods were quiet. But we talked happily of how the change was here, right at our doorstep.

This morning, I was awoke early. I took my coffee cup and slipped outside. This is the first morning in months when the air is above freezing. Piles of snow still cling to spots that don't get direct sunlight. The chill sends piles of steam dancing up from my coffee. But there is a lift.

Invisible to the naked eye, unheard in the ear, but sensed within, there is a different feel to the earth. I'm thinking of a garden and imagining things springing up under the mulch.

We all felt it yesterday, even while navigating snow-covered trails. The change has begun.

It reminds me of something that happens in writing. I labor over a project and it feels like I'm slogging through a cold wind until something breaks through. There is a shift. No one else can see it, but I sense it. I can't explain it, but I know. Everything will be different from here.

I have found the voice that was always there, underground, waiting for its time to speak. Soon it will change the landscape.

Does this ever happen to you? How do you find the "voice" of a project? Can you sense a shift before you notice visible differences?

To Write or Not to Write?

That is the question!

I'm tired and foggy this morning. I've been pushing hard to get a lot of things done, and I'm feeling the effects of it. I'm pleased with what I've accomplished, but I can tell that I am not going to have a productive day today.

I'm trying to decide if I should do any writing. I have read, from books on writing, two different views on this. The first view is that we should always write, no matter what. Every day. Whether we are sick or tired or brain-dead. There are those who believe that since we learn to write by writing, productivity is the path to competence, and productivity only happens when we write every day.

The second view is that a break is good for the creative mind. That there should be an ebb and flow from life to writing and back again. Walking away from the computer for a timed vacation, becoming immersed in something else, refreshes and restores the writer. Coming back after a break can mean that we more than make up for the time away. I have personally experienced this. It's like a tide that goes out and comes back in.

The problem with the second approach is that it may mean we take too long to get the writing done. Stephen Koch, former chair of Columbia University's graduate creative writing program, maintains that "Everything you write will take longer than you think it should." (Writer's Workshop 2003)

I am intrigued by Anthony Trollop's approach. Whenever he began a book, he set a realistic deadline for it, based on an estimate of his ability to produce a certain amount each day and the length of the book he was writing. He marked off the days in a diary. He never missed a deadline. Never.

Now I want to know what you think.

Should a writer press through to meet a quota every day of the week, even if the results may be lower in quality? Or should the writer have regularly scheduled breaks from writing? Which method works better for you?

Travels of the Windy Kind

Yesterday, we received 9 inches of snow here in North Carolina. Heavy snow. Our neighborhood looked exactly like the scenes I remember from my tour through British Columbia over 25 years ago. After the snow ended, the wind picked up. It blew hard all night.

When I woke up this morning, the wind was buffeting the house, slamming into it actually. I felt as though it would lift us off the foundations and we would go up, up, up into the sky and be whisked to another place.

I asked my husband, before my eyes were open, "Are we still in Kansas?"

Without missing a beat, he said, "No, we're in Minnesota now."

I laughed, shuffled to the window, and looked outside. Still rubbing my eyes and blinking, I looked. Then I looked again. Wow. The snow has been piled up and sculpted by the wind so that it looks like sand dunes.

Here's the crazy thing. Afternoon temperatures will hit nearly 60 degrees this weekend. March has indeed, come in like a lion, but I think it's a circus lion in a clown suit, running around the tent, acting very naughty. He's not doing his trained tricks. He's decided that's too boring. He wants to spice things up and have some excitement.

What's the weather like at your house?

Voices: John Keats

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:

Its loveliness increases; it will never

Pass into nothingness; but still will keep

A bower quiet for us, and a sleep

Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.

Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing

A flowery band to bind us to the earth,

Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth

Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,

Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways

Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,

Some shape of beauty moves away the pall

From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,

Trees old, and young, sprouting a shady boon

For simple sheep; and such are daffodils

With the green world they live in; and clear rills

That for themselves a cooling covert make

'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,

Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:

And such too is the grandeur of the dooms

We have imagined for the mighty dead;

All lovely tales that we have heard or read:

An endless fountain of immortal drink,

Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

Nor do we merely feel these essences

For one short hour; no, even as the trees

That whisper round a temple become soon

Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon,

The passion poesy, glories infinite,

Haunt us till they become a cheering light

Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast

That, whether there be shine or gloom o'ercast,

They always must be with us, or we die.

- John Keats

______________________

Photograph, copyright 2010 by Benjamin Frear.

Do you have a favorite poet? A poem that you really like?

How to Find Your Voice

Amazing grace, it appears, is bestowed not on the perpetually sighted but on those who "once were blind, but now can see." Just as youth is wasted on the young, eyes are wasted on those of us who see. Or think we see. The problem with eyes is that we get used to having them. We get used to seeing our same old world in the same old way. Marriages end everyday because of this. On those evenings when I need to fall in love with my life again, I step out the door, down the front steps, and past the iron gate that surrounds our townhouse. For emphasis, I slam the gate and listen for the clang that reverberates, traveling down each iron post.

I'm outside my life now, a visitor at the gate. I close my eyes long enough to erase the accustomed scene the Dorothy in me has yawned away. Then I take a deep breath, open my eyes, and I'm not in Kansas anymore. The lights are on (all things become more beautiful when lit from within) and there's a man standing at the second-floor window, holding a cat in his arms. What a handsome man, I think. Wouldn't it be nice to live in that house?

- Rebecca McClanahan, Word Painting

I thought I was the only one who ever did this.

Once in a while you should try it, just for the view. Look at your life like you would read a book or gaze upon a painting. Go away from the noise and pressing needs, then come back. What do you see? Whatever you notice, good or bad, will be important.

The next thing I do is write down what I saw. I know that there will be a time later when it matters, when I'll need the eyes I had at that moment.

It also matters for my writing. What I see and write down is important to my writer's voice and my core message. There is no better way to figure out what your writing is really all about than to do this a number of times and then read what you wrote. Read all the passages together in a stream. What does it say about you? What does your life seem to "speak" about? Your writing probably does the same.

This is how I discovered that my core message was a joyful life. No one could have been more surprised by this than I was. I have other themes, too -- living well, adventure, truth, love. But the one that kept leaping off the pages was joy. I would have never thought of it if someone had just asked me what it was.

Have you ever had the experience of going away and coming back to your life and seeing it differently? What might be a core theme of your writing or of your life? What's it all about?