coffee break

We're making coffee at work just now.

It's 3:30 and I'm hitting the afternoon slump. And we've opened a new canister of coffee in the pod...


That's still one of the best smells in the world to me, Opening up a fresh bag of coffee

I can remember, as a kid, my mom reaching to put groceries away in our cupboards, and we’d all amble over to her as she’d open up the vacuum-sealed back of ground beans. The swoosh and sudden weight of the bag. The sharp, rich smell of the beans as she’d hold it out and let each of us stick our noses into the bag and smell before she refilled the giant canister she kept in the cupboard.

It’s better than the smell of brewed coffee. Better than the smell of the beans by themselves. Those grounds makes me think of digging my toes into the dark, loamy mud in the summer. They make me think of curling up around a mug in the kitchen of our old house in the winter, after dinner, watching the birds and squirrels peck at the feeders in the narrow strip of mossed-over back yard just before the edge dropped off down a small ravine ending in a winding little creek. Of swinging my feet against the short, berbered carpet under the heavy woodplank antique kitchen table, the sound of my soles shushing over the carpet, my calves cracking against the cane chairs softly, listening to the murmur of my parents talk over their coffee, listening to the soft clink of forks and spoons against ceramic, of glasses against the placemats, listening to the maker percolating on the countertop.

Funny how memories are so wrapped up in individual senses sometimes.