As it brews, I walk circles around the downstairs, folding throw blankets. Repositioning pillows. When the coffee is done, I pour a cup and add maple syrup and whole milk. I have always wished I drank my coffee black.
I keep misplacing it though as I grab things to tidy up. I go to put abandoned glasses in the dishwasher, but forget that I have left my mug hiding next to the philodendron. I collect wayward socks. Hang up discarded sweaters. Sweep up the never ending piles of debris that grace our floors.
Soon enough I hear Gus coming downstairs. He is always the first to wake.
"Has daddy left?"
"No, he's in the basement writing."
Gus curls into a corner of the vintage floral sofa we inherited after my grandmother passed away and my grandfather moved into a smaller apartment. He tells me about his Mindcraft adventures, and I sit down to pound out a few clumsy words on the keyboard. "Will you get the cat food and water?"
He readily obliges.
I interrupt my train of thought to go start the dishwasher. While I'm up, I decide to start a load of laundry while I can. Tom appears, dressed for work. Makes himself a cup of tea and then leaves us to our own devices, as we wait for the neighbor girl to go over to eat a bowl of cereal and wait out the time until she gets on the bus.
As the minutes tick by, I shush Gus and his friend when I think I hear sounds coming from a sleepy baby girl upstairs in my bedroom. False alarms. She will sleep late on this gray, dreary day. I think of all that I need to do. Pull something from the freezer for dinner. Cook the dino kale thats getting old in the crisper drawer. Return library books. Collect clothes for give away.
The day will keep moving. There will be more coffee. More toys to put away. There will be bickering and complaining, and words that make me laugh out loud. The floor will stay dirty. The coffee table will become a dinosaur parade route. I'll wish for spring ten times before noon.
Your coffee habits are shockingly similar to ours. Only we have trained Lucy to go out and push the button to turn it on, not usually being lucky enough to wake up before her. ;)
ReplyDeletei love this. "i'll wish for spring ten times before noon." is my favorite line. it cracks me up what you said about the french press and pour overs! ha ha! we are using a pour over now, but only because our machine recently broke. thankfully i bought my husband a chemex for christmas. we had planned to use it for weekend coffee but now it's everyday. it's slow, but kind of meditative.
ReplyDeleteA wonderful read, as always. You make me want to slow down and record my own morning ...
ReplyDelete