Two interesting things today.
Every day, with only a few exceptions for travel (a power outage results only in a French press), I make a pot of coffee. I like coffee. Somewhere there is a word that better describes my feeling, a word that transcends ebullience, but I won’t waste time on the search now. I have made a pot, sometimes two, per day, every day, for as long as I can remember. The ritual is the same, every day: I wake up, I want coffee. I lay in bed wondering what it would be like if someone else made me a pot and brought me a cup. If I am alone, I conclude I best get started. If I am not alone, I conclude that she can’t make as good a pot as I. Still drowsy, I make my way to the kitchen, pour beans into the grinder (a fine little German fellow, about 35 years old, I think he is), grind them to my instinctual stop, pour water into the machine, empty the grinds into the basket, employ the brush to extract the dust from the grinder, first from the plastic top and then the grinding well, with the same clockwise motions I’ve forever employed. I close up the machine, hit the button, look around, contemplate whether a task is doable before at least one cup is brewed, conclude it isn’t, wait for the first cup, withdraw the pot, pour it out, replace the pot for the rest of the brew to finish. Smile.
Something went wrong today.
It wasn’t a matter of consciousness, as I’m usually half asleep through all of this. Today, as I dropped the beans into the grinder, I thought it looked a bit much. But in tranquil confidence I concluded that I’ve done this instinctually forever; I will trust my instinct. I emptied the grounds into the basket. It looked overly full. I will trust my instinct. I made a bad pot of coffee.
The conclusion is that I dumped out the coffee and made a new pot. Anti-climactic, I know.
The climax, perhaps, lays in the epilogue. Drinking the corrected pot, I wondered why. I tried to remember the last time I made a bad pot. I couldn’t recall an instance. What was it about today? Was it the thick morning mist that floated invisibly but gathered so heavy as to appear like rain originating from tree leaves? Was it the distraction of the dirty dishes beside the coffee maker, dishes that should have been washed the day before? Maybe it was just a check, a purposeful disruption, a purpose that existed outside of intention. A god did not want to disrupt me, fate did not want to disrupt me. It just happened. But it had to happen. I happy enough not to know why.
In recent weeks I have expanded on the ritual, adding community. On a lawn chair, I seat myself in the corner of the yard. I choose the corner because at this early hour, the yard is not mine. It clearly belongs to the birds, the wind, the mist, the squirrels, the sounds. I strive to be an odd appendage to the environmental form. Wait, no, not odd. Maybe not even an appendage. Just part of the form. My quietude seems to invite the opposite. Squirrels look for places to bury peanuts (where are they getting all these peanuts?). Different birds sing songs in varying registers. Hummingbirds hover closely and take from the feeder. Leaves and wind create a comforting blanket of sound. On the lawn, robins scratch. This is the routine.
In a second, a Cooper’s hawk swoops down to buzz the lawn, sending the three robins there into the air. The squirrels knew well enough to hide. I think even the wind stopped; we were all caught off guard. The hawk, a young one from the looks of it, completed its parabola by parking in a tree. It seemed to me that, in its youth, it really had no idea what it was doing. It seemed like a good idea to swoop down on the robins, but now, its means lacked ends. It looked around before taking off.
I’ve never seen a hawk in my neighborhood, much less had one in my yard (at least to my knowledge). Soon, the wind re-rustled the leaves. The hummingbird squeaked, heralding everyone’s return. And I guess I was glad to know that I wasn’t the most arrogant and disruptive being in this scene. As I document this a few hours after the fact, I am still glad of that.
