Keri's stuff :-)

Coffee, anyone?

I was thinking this morning about coffee.  Well, actually, coffee and tea, but as coffee was next to the toast in front of me, coffee came first.  I never used to like it.  The smell was ok - kind of homely if you were out and smelt fresh ground beans, but the taste? Ugh.  Even in cakes or icecream, where it was a sweet and fairly mild flavour I didn't like it.  My parents drink their coffee black with sugar.  Nope.  My friends drank it with lots of milk and lots of sugar.  Nope.  It wasn't until I was travelling in Sardinia that I discovered that I actually liked coffee.  And why?  Because that was the first time I'd tried it as coffee - strong, black, nothing added.  Just straight coffee on its own.  The same is true for me and tea.  I remember taking the train from Auckland to Wellington sometime during my childhood, and asking for tea from the trolley as it came past (just to prove I was grown up). I figured that it would be best with sugar (which I liberally supplied from those cool little sachets), and put lots of milk in to make it cool enough to drink.  So it tasted sweet, and milky (no real surprises there) a little like perfume, and I felt sick the rest of the train ride.  Nowdays, living in England, I will drink tea, but also black, no sugar, no milk, that's luverly, ta. 

All these things were what I thought about over my coffee this morning.  I wonder what this information could teach me, in the realm beyond elevenses, I mean.  I wonder what other things are out there that I have tried and turned away from; not because of their own nature, but because I am judging them unknowingly on their trappings and extras, behind which the real heart of the matter is obscured.  And finally I wonder how I have detracted from the things that matter, by what I have added to them.  To whom have I said "Taste and see", and then added sugar or milk and watched them turn away in disgust. The worst part is that it's the coffee they profess to dislike, not the sugar or the milk.  That's the saddest part.  Maybe there are situations that are better without things added to them.  Maybe when I feel drawn to do something or say something, I should just do it - do just it, without wondering about the next step, or how to make everything better.  Maybe what I am asked for is the best thing to give.  Just a thought. K.

• Posted by flyingkiwi on 03/06/2006.
• flyingkiwi's site