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There are some questions in life that seep over the borders of science and human reason, questions that transcend our intellect. I’m talking about the real doozies. The ones that trip us up in such a way that, after a short pondering, we resign ourselves to exist in a contented ignorance. The sort of questions that leave even the sharpest tools in the shed with a blunt look on their face. There are the easy ones: “Why do we exist?” and “What is love?” Then things get tougher: “What compels all the wrinkly old people to putter around the pool locker naked?” And eventually we hit upon a depth charge of a conundrum whose sole purpose is to sink us. Like this one: just how does coffee form that bond between the stomach, soul, and mind that arouses within a writer a facility for luxurious prose and distinguished style that, prior to said coffee, was not even a whisper in the air?

All writers understand deeply the way in which coffee affects their work and lifestyle. It is bitter, yet uplifting. Hard-hitting, yet calming. Coffee is joy. Honey may be the nectar of the gods; coffee is the salvation of the mortals.

The beginning

A long time ago, what many historians purport to be the early to mid 1500s, a blessed individual of surely remarkable taste made the first brew of coffee. This beverage would make mornings matter and offer taste buds such scintillating excitement that would change humanity.

Actually, that first brew was probably rotten. Unroasted chunkily-ground beans, lukewarm water, and a sloppy drip method were most likely part of the first cup. I bet the poor sap who thought it all up had to drink it out of a pan that sent renegade streams of coffee dribbling down his beard and tickling his chin. If we ever dug him up, we’d find his shirt stained with a few coffee spots that never came out. Maybe the stuff was so disagreeable he spewed it out and the first cup of coffee never actually made it past those taste buds. Whatever the state of his clothing or taste buds, I sure am glad he saw those beans and thought, “I know what I’ll do! I’ll roast these beans and grind them and put them in a strainer and pour in some hot water and when I’m done, I’ll have changed the world for endless generations!” That’s intelligence to admire.

Heaven in heaven

People like to talk about the first person they want to meet in heaven. You always hear names like President Lincoln, Gandhi, Mozart, Moses: all the regular stand-bys. Some have their questions ready about what it’s like to get assassinated (which I’m sure ends in an awkward silence), what’s going through your head as you jot down your 40th symphony, and just how did you part that Red Sea? Pardon my blasphemy, but they all play second fiddle to the man who helped me lay my burden down, opened my eyes, and brought joy and peace to my soul: the man who made the first cup of coffee. After I’ve checked my baggage at the gates, I’ll stride through those fancy gates looking for an angel in a uniform. (People in uniforms always seem to know their way around.) I’ll ask that angel, “Where is he? You know, the one that helped me make it through life in one piece.” With any luck, the angel might point me in the right direction and won’t slap me with his wings. I bet that angel gets asked questions a lot.

There will probably be a waiting line for our dear coffee brewer long enough to serve as a substitute purgatory. Or maybe heaven affords you the convenience of bi-location; now that would be nice. I could be kicking around the football while standing in line at the same time. Of course, bi-location might only be for those who made it through purgatory in two months, like a rewards program of sorts.

Either way, the first thing I do no matter how long the lines is find that gift to humanity and shake his hand, pat him on the back, and tell him with tears of gratitude that he was the reason I was able to stay conscious all those Monday mornings, to avoid spastic collapse onto my desk, to actually nod my head and smile while my personality-challenged friend rambled eternally in one of the most pointless afternoons of my life. I’ll tell him that he was the reason I was able to live a fulfilling life of inspiration, passion, and purpose and to stay awake for it all. Thank you, thank you. Thank you.

Then I might spare a few moments in heaven for Gandhi.

Mud in my stomach

You see, coffee does things to a writer.

It is morning. I wake up, eat, clean my teeth. I place myself firmly in a chair that is neither too comfortable nor too unpleasant, just right to ensure I maintain a fitting amount of edge in my consciousness. Either laying out a blank sheet of ruled paper or an empty Microsoft Word document, I set myself up to tackle my writing for the day. I might stumble across a few working arguments and clever phrase constructions, but at the end of an hour-long session, I really haven’t accomplished anything notable. My thinking feels slow and disconnected and I’m certainly not arriving at any epiphany-like conclusions. I can string together words into coherent sentences, but I cannot write. I feel more like an alphabet technician than a writer. So I spend the next minutes making a pot of coffee. Concepts and ideas and illustrations and theories swarm into my head as a whiff of the coffee grounds snap me to attention. Alphabet technician no longer; a book is longing to burst forth from my frontal lobes. Oh rapture as my heartbeat lines up with the balanced dripping of the water through my plastic Mr. Coffee!

There is a feeling that can eat away at a person, a longing to be with loved ones who replenish the soul. It is a yearning feeling mixed with the knowledge of eventual satisfaction because at the end of the day, one knows that home is waiting. While the coffee is dripping and promising its warmth in my stomach, I experience that same feeling. A building anticipation. A knowledge of conclusion and happiness that will occur in time and take me away from the drudgery of life. During those three and a half minutes while the coffee is bubbling in the background, I have nothing to do but think about my writing. And now, the rush of thoughts from the whiff of coffee grounds start collecting into a lucid stream that I rapidly write out, forming in three and a half minutes what I couldn’t in sixty.

While my favorite white mug is carefully positioned on the countertop and after my customary dash of creamer has blended into the mug’s bottom, the coffee streams out of the carafe and ripples to the top. Several more lines of genius come to mind. And I take the first sip. As soon as the coffee reaches my inside, thoughts no longer are a drawn out process of experiences finding their ways through a maze of brain cells and neurons to reach my paper in a diluted state. Rather, the writing tools become instruments of the entire self, translating the deepest thoughts and clearest arguments without barriers or struggle. Thoughts gel into simple phrases that explain in one sentence what might have taken ten before coffee. Thinking changes, the self changes, writing changes.

A solution

Is it possible to analyze and dissect this phenomenon and discover the why and how of it? If provided with a team of Yale scientists, eight years of government funded research, and a breakthrough involving caffeine-injected gerbil experiments, it is possible. However, were such an end achieved, reading the report and caring to any extent would not make it to my morning agenda. You see, we can devise a double-stranded helix-spiral and neural process diagram that illustrates the complex process originating in the stomach’s muscle contractions and brain chemical releases that cause a stimulation of epinephrines to focus and align our cognitive processes into a logical progression of words and communication.

And? We’re not a step further.

Science has yet to confront the soul. Science is in adoration with the physical and, unfortunately, leaves the metaphysical up to the philosophers who do a shoddy job of doing anything more than complicate. What we do with our soul echoes in our body, and what we do with our body echoes in our soul. Do we honestly know much more than that? No. And that’s OK. I can live with that. We can debate chemical processes until the world is no more and we won’t be any closer to an answer.

Coffee is a dawn with snappy air and a paint-smeared sky. Coffee is inspiration when my muse has gone on vacation. Coffee is like a friend that rejuvenates my spirit and precipitates a smile when the world gives me no reason. Coffee moves me to witness a miracle in a ruled manuscript resting on the edge of a windowsill with finely layered dust spread over its gray cover, softly pleading for its yellowed pages to be visited when before, it was only a notebook.

My soul is moved when I drink coffee.

And that’s all I need to know.

Illustration by Lacey Anderson.

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Topics

• Pithy Tales
• Accounts & Glimpses
• Verse
• On Writing