Coffee

I love coffee.

Its strong flavor and fragrant aroma usually manage to cheer me up, if only for the few minutes it takes to sip the inky stuff.

It isn't the coffee itself, it's the whole experience. Setting up the coffee pot to brew - putting water on the stove to warm, grinding the beans and finding that one cup that seems to work best with the coffee - these are all a part of the ceremony. One cannot perform sacred actions without preparation, and Coffee Making is definately sacred. Waiting for the water to heat up to almost a boil (coffee is best released from the beans if the water is just off the boil) creates a good time pocket in which to wake up. Pouring water into the French press with ground up beans floating loosely in the container and watching the grounds turn the water from clear to a transparent brown to a dark liquid that promises only good things. This alone can help set the tone of the day. Once the coffee is ready, there is a certain speed for pushing the plunger down and herding all the grounds, or most of them anyway, to the bottom of the press. Finding that speed is essential in learning to make coffee. Some say it that speed adds to the flavor while others argue it doesn't. I say it's just one of the many rituals that is important in Serious Coffee Making.

Coffee is a serious experience and must be approached with reverence.

Then comes the first whiff.

After getting that first whiff it's usually a good idea to put the coffee pot down, or at least level it off, so you don't spill it. Go ahead. Take a few seconds to smell it.

Purr.

The smell of freshly brewed coffee is the ideal, early morning experience. It can create a day or destroy it, depending on the circumstances surrounding it. If you're in too much of a hurry to enjoy that first whiff, you may never get rid of the crankiness that was born from forcing yourself out of bed at 4am in the #@%&*(^$#@ morning (yes, I really do get up that early). With enough time to let the heavenly fumes creep into your nasal passages and work its way into your psyche, the challenges that face you at your despised job can turn merely unimportant.

Skipping that first whiff is like going straight to communion without having been confirmed a Catholic. Sinful at best.

But the critical part of the Early Morning Coffee Routine is the sitting in favorite spot and sipping it. Me, I choose the lower right hand corner of my bed. I sit "Indian style" on it, my elbows resting on my knees, my cup of coffee floating between both hands. It's the perfect position for me because it allows the aroma of coffee an uninterrupted path to my nose and mouth.

It usually takes me about 15 minutes to enjoy that first cup of coffee in the morning. It's private time. A time for me to create a truce with the fact that I had to drag myself out of a warm cozy bed when I may or may not have been sleeping and face a world where numbers are the only thing that matters. The minor jolt of caffeine also helps kick start systems that have been in idle for the last few hours and get things going with a minimal amount of trauma. The extra time also helps me define my priorities for the day.

Weekends are different. Specifically, Saturday mornings are different. You're not confined to having ONE cup of coffee squeezed into a mere FIFTEEN minutes of time. You can enjoy TWO cups of coffee over the New York Times, a bagel or two and absolute silence to sustain you. For this reason, Saturdays (or their equivelent) become the High Holy Days of a Coffee Addict. This is the time for serious enjoyment of one of the simpler pleasures of life to be experienced and thought about.

I've never had much luck understanding human kind, for all that I'm considered by most to be a human. I've never really had much luck understanding the male of the species. Curtis managed to show me what romance and deep love can taste like, but even he turned out to be substandard in the end. The corporate word? FAGEDDABAHT it!

But I'll always have coffee.

Honor and Experience

I love to travel. I like hearing different languages being spoken, tasting different foods and working out different kinds of money. I like seeing how different countries have solved the same idiotic problems we have, like window locks, or electricity outlets. Traveling opens your eyes, expands your horizons and helps to make you more broad minded.

Ok, I'll stop with the cliches.

I caught the travel bug in 1992. I was invited to participate in a youth conference being held in Brazil. Some 600 students and young adults from around the world were given the onerous task of solving the world's problems in 10 days or less. To do that, we were taken on an "exposure." I'm thinking the purpose of this exposure was to underline the more obvious problems, poverty, environment, education, with the challenges of holding onto culture.

My group shacked up for 12 days with the Kura-Bakairi. A tribe of Indians native to Brazil. They've been there since the beginning of time and have a highly complex culture which is both harsh and gentle at the same time. I found them to be accepting and caring, easy to get along with. Their ways were familiar some how, but then, I am myself a Native American.

The Kura-Bakairi start their days with a morning ritual that includes, for lack of a better term, prayer. Their shaman goes from house to house to see that everything went well through the night and to accept offerings of food and drink for the Gods. A short ceremony brings the community together to discuss the days events and tasks before the village separates into individuality to get on with the complexities of living in the Amazon rain forest. The food that was offered to the Gods in ceremony is then distributed to families and friends who might not be as well off as some of the others, thereby addressing and helping the poorer members of the community without degrading their humanity.

I found it an elegant solution to a problem a lot of communities have. When I got to the conference proper, I tried to include ways to deal with desperate situations with dignity in our discussions. No one likes asking for handouts and giving them can be just as embarrassing. Why not find a simple way to help people get what they need while granting them their own humanity?

The Kura-Bakairi were curious about me also, which surprised me. They found out that I am a Native American and specifically asked if I could be included in the delegation assigned to them. It was an honor I was not expecting and still am not sure how to express that honor some 13 years later. I was moved by their invitation and tried my best to do my own people proud. I offered them a medicine wheel. A religious symbol my own people use to remind them "who's boss in these here parts." I was privileged to a unique ceremony the Bakairi performed to introduce the new symbol to their own spiritual forces.

There are times when words miss the point. "Honor" no longer had the strength to hold up the experience.

I was hooked, addicted to travel in a way most people miss. It isn't just about seeing the world. It's about mixing with the people and getting to know their way of life. Attitudes change when you travel, and you have to allow the experiences change you, shape your beliefs. If you're not willing to change, you can't enjoy the experience.

I'm here.

My name is Marisol. When I was growing up, people called me "Sol" (pronounced "soul") which means "sun." I acquired my current nickname, Mari, while I was traveling through South America in the 1990s. Mostly that's what I go by now, although you can still find people who call me Sol.

I just turned 37 a week ago. I feel old even though people tell me I'm not. I love good strong coffee, smooth chocolate and really expensive scotch. Coffee I have every day. Chocolate I try to put off, but sometimes I'm not successful. Really expensive scotch is only a very occasional treat.

I am somewhat sophisticated, pretty well read and educated and enjoy a variety of things. I'm bright, if I do say so myself. ;) I like writing. I use writing as a way to think things through and explore ideas. I've kept a journal on and off since I was 8 or so. My father keeps saying I should do writing for a living, but I'm not sure how to go about doing that. It might be nice making money off what I write about. The big question is, is what I write about really interesting enough for others to read and want to buy?

*Shrugs.*

I have one Blog at another website, but I don't anticipate too many people from here reading that one. I've liked keeping that Blog though, so I thought I'd try this one. I like to write, and the WWW seems like the "in" place to do that now.

Now I just have to think of what to write for my next entry.

Any suggestions?

M