I drink coffee. It is an event that has been present in my life for a long, long time. However, my start as a regular coffee drinker was relatively late. Some role was played by my grandmother, who prepared delicious and very thick coffees with milk and lots of sugar, accompanied by buns of tender bread with clarified margarine. Whenever we had breakfast with her, she always gave us coffee and my mother was horrified! So drinking coffee with my grandmother behind my mother's back was a small act that vindicated secrets, an intimate and happy space.
After that time, when I was very little, maybe seven years old, the most distant memories I have about coffee occurred about ten years later, when I went to drink coffee with the circle of friends at my university. Those were the early years of my literary studies and we would go out with our books in our hands to cafés and also to bars. We drank a lot of coffee and also a lot of beer (Cheers to the undocumented and happy times of the university! Hahaha...).
In this picture from a thousand years ago I am telling my friend Reinaldo what a good gossip is like, today I am the godmother of his daughter.
In this other photo from a thousand and five hundred years ago, I am wearing, as far as I can see, three coffees. It was during a lecture for the Department of Modern Languages at my university. Since they knew I liked coffee, well, they took good care of me.
What are all these memories that may sound a bit nostalgic? Well, I couldn't write in a past #tcsp topic and I regretted it, because the proposal made a lot of vital sense to me: Is it possible that there is a relationship between the way someone consumes coffee and how that person is?
My rational mind pushes me to answer with a somewhat flat no though with its own arguments: much of what we do has a learned cultural component, that is, a pattern, and there is also the fact, well learned from Dr. House and Sherlock Holmes, those kings of logic, that almost anything can be faked. However, I can tell you what the people with whom I usually have coffee have in common.
And this speaks more about me than about them and my relationship with coffee.
In this photo I am with José Véliz, botanist, coffee lover, and above all, friend. How much time have I not spent with Cheo, listening with rapt attention to his knowledge of tree roots! How much time have I not spent savoring his coffee and struggling to understand his explanation of leaf systems? I maintain that Cheo is a botanical poet who loves coffee and has one of the most expansive smiles I know.
In this photo, with their respective coffees, José Luis Marcano Carpintero, friend, another coffee lover, literary and podcaster, with Rubi Guerra, writer and Nancy Brito, teacher and writer, during the presentation of Rubi Guerra's book, “Cálidas ruinas”.
The people I drink coffee with are people who love life. People who understand that drinking coffee is not about gulping it down in one gulp to get rid of sleep. They are people who understand that drinking coffee is a space where the time between sips is dilated with conversation, laughter and the present. Being there for each other, to understand life, its dilemmas and trials in a friendly way.
Coffee is a place to think about good books and celebrate them.
I have an extraordinary coffee-loving friend: José Malavé, @josemalavem. He prepares a spiced coffee with cloves, star anise and guava pepper that is a delight. He serves it in his small clay cups, made in Manicuare, a small village in these parts, where old women burn the clay in holes in the ground and their pieces are left with streaks of fire and handprints. José's coffee balances you, it is a medicine and a wonderful companion to a conversation full of references to poetry, art, philosophy, and José knows how to laugh with mischief. A big point.
In this photo, José is on the right. I am in the center and my husband is on the left. We are baptizing @rjguerra's book, El mar invisible, with rum. It's a prehistoric era, in the 90's, as you can appreciate and we were just three good friends doing what we love. Too bad I don't have any coffee pictures with José.
I don't have enough time in one post to name them. And the one I've probably had the most coffees with is my friend Rafael, apart from my family, yes, especially @marlyncabrera and @sandracabrera, but you, at Cinnamon Cup Coffee (@cinnccf), know their coffee adventures first hand!
Although I am approaching the word limit, I must talk about my friend Rafael.
Rafael is an oceanographer and, like Cheo, loves plants. He always tells me that he is a botanist of microscopic plants. In his lab I drank hundreds of scientifically filtered coffees hahaha.... Now that interest unites us. I organize activities with him to promote interest in ecosystems and he, little by little, has begun to dabble in poetry. Rafaél has an acid humor, he is witty and I have learned a lot from him and his ethical valuation of life.
People who love life, think about it and enjoy it.
My country is not easy, and when I have felt that I have lost the north and discouragement catches me, I call a friend and ask him “Would you like to have a cup of coffee?
The answer is always, somehow, even when pockets deny coffee, that question is the rivindication of joy.
You are always welcome.
All photographs are from my personal archive.
