How coffee continues to direct our world.

There are many a fascinating rabbit hole you can jump down to trace the history of coffee from Africa, the Middle East, and then the world. And it's worth the read because the more you learn about this ubiquitous herb, the more you will understand its transformative power on agriculture, civilizations, and industry.

Luckily for those of us who occupy positions of increased visibility and scrutiny, this socially acceptable upper has accompanied more than breakfast, lunch and dinner - it has accompanied the decisions which shaped the modern world and rested on the table beside fever-dream artistic frenzies of the great creators of the past. Its proliferation not-so-coincidentally coincided with the Renaissance in Europe. It is not hyperbole to say that few inventions of man have had a greater impact on mankind than the harnessing of coffee's potential.

But that rabbit hole has been explored more thoroughly elsewhere (I will post a few good resources for further enrichment), so I would like to use my paws to carve out a different nook. That is, what is coffee to me. I invite you to ask the same question of yourself as you read. And that might be presumptuous of me, since not everyone even likes coffee, nevermind the ethereal heights I'm elevating this drink to in my near-religious devotion.

But you're reading my songs of praise too, so I'd say there's a good chance you can relate, or at least consider the circus act of grown men sitting around and praising the inconspicuous little beans to be a source of entertainment. So take a sip of the cup beside you now, and read on. You might feel impelled to order another cup by the end - and that's never a bad thing, right?

(disclaimer: if you have high blood pressure or high anxiety, this could be a bad thing. So take what I say with a grain of salt. Unless you have high blood pressure.)

One of my undergrad professors once told me in friendlier terms than it sounds, that he hopes his daughter does not grow up to be like me. He was describing the out-of-sync circumstances that often birth poets, and was in fact affirming that he believed I did indeed have a place in the creative writing program at my university (while also wryly lamenting that fact).

His comment stemmed from his observation that poets usually hail from background where they don't fit in, or feel that they do at least. I was the youngest janitor at Bellevue College at the time, working with men much older than me, and studying with college students a few years younger.

I was and am Christian, but my beliefs often clashed with the conventions of my community. I felt smart enough to pursue an education, but doubted whether I was among the least intelligent in my cohort. I juggled these competing interests well enough for a long time, but felt myself clinging to my fractured identity like a piece of floating shipwreck when I shot across the ocean to Japan and became a truly foreign entity, more lost than ever before now that I couldn't interact with most people, read street signs, or take anything for granted.

Being "from" somewhere started to take on a new meaning and allure. People were curious about me, and I asked myself the same questions they implicitly asked me - "What is distinct about your origin?" What are my roots, my tribe?

I came to a few conclusions: My highschool years in Missouri and parts of my childhood in Kansas notwithstanding, I was "from" the Seattle area. I rationally deduced that since more years, and arguably more formative years, were spent there; that since the unwritten rules dictate one must be from a single place to the exclusion of others, it was more justifiable to be "from" this area than any other. I also felt compelled to lean into this identity, since coffee typified my life more than barbecue, and because people in Seattle less often told me I spoke with an accent than those in the Midwest.

And I think I had a decent primary education in coffee to bolster this view. Having had my first sip around the tender age of 9, I had developed a nostalgic affection for the now-forgotten espresso "stands" that popped up around the Pacific Northwest in the 1990's (having since been replaced with brick-and-mortar stores, coffee bars inside grocery and department stores, and bikini baristas).

Coffee was natural enough for me. I hadn't always loved it like a mentor, but in my destitute years of depression and aimlessness in my 20's, the toil of much-loathed jobs and generalized disappointment with myself had few bright spots to look at. But coffee was always one of them. It came with me to work and kept me from losing my job at the call center sooner (not necessarily a good thing).

It also kept me awake late into the night talking way over my head about philosophy, morality, and conspiracy theories with a couple of pilgrims possessed of far greater intellect and curiosity than their stations in life would have suggested (All of us since graduated from university, one is pursuing PhD studies and is a published author, and I'm a diplomat).

Coffee sharpened my senses, tasting at times electric in the frenetic thoughts it engendered, and at other times like a forgotten tome that beckoned the assiduous study of a fearless thinker. It aided a life rule I since created for myself, to look with open eyes at every situation, to call the good and the bad exactly as it is.

It provided a sort of rebellion against the alternate form of addiction which many in my family suffered from - alcoholism. While they ran from the world and descended into a stupor out of fear, I told myself that my drug of choice only made me see more clearly as I looked at the world with the courage necessary to face it. I would never be like them. I fancied that each sip of coffee reaffirmed this.

Since then, coffee helped to drag me through relentless work/study schedules, kept my eyes open in the most pointless of meetings, and became the vibrancy that made the things I already enjoyed, more enjoyable. In the dark times, it asked no questions and demanded no answers (Did you know coffee consumption has been correlated with reduced risk of suicide?). In the good times, it pushed me out of lethargy and elicited writings, singing, and finished homework assignments.

When I started to believe I was "from" Seattle, I lamented the fact that I had never worked as a barista before (How can I truly be from Seattle if I neither worked at Starbucks, nor Amazon before?). And I latched onto this shard of my synthesized identity in foreign lands, embracing it as both my heritage, and my companion through the next wild exigency life will throw my way in Israel, DC, or somewhere else that I am wholly unprepared for.

I intend to walk in to the next chapter with eyes wide open. And that is what coffee means to me.

#coffee #coffeeislife #coffeekeepsyoualive #seattle #singleorigincoffee #blendedcoffee