Coffee Rings

This is our first holiday season without my mom, and the phrase ‘one day at a time’ has new meaning for me.  I knew this time of year would be hard, and I tried to prepare myself for it by setting a low bar.  As the to-do list grows and the suggested activities keep showing up on social media, I try to take a breath and prioritize.  What matters this year is healing, family, and adjustment.

My mom and I would begin talking about the food for the holidays by the first week in November.  I’d pour my second cup of coffee (the first was gulped while the house was still chaotic with kids getting ready for school), sit down with it for a minute and give her a call.  Should we try salt brining the turkey like so-and-so did on the Food Network?  What kind of stuffing are you going to make?  Should we have a fourth dessert?  Should we try to make artichokes for Christmas Eve, and what about the pizzelle Grandma B always had?  

Come to think of it, so much of our conversation revolved around food.  It didn’t matter if we were hosting holidays; everyday dinner plans were perpetually discussed, whether in frustration, boredom, or triumph.  Talking through menu plans with her always helped me visualize; I could see how things were going to go because she was my partner in this field.  I didn’t have to feel silly about broaching the most mundane of topics (what brand of hot dogs should we get for the bbq?) because she understood that these things matter.  When you plan dinners for your family, when you invite people to your home, when you pass down recipes through generations, these things matter.  

Believe it or not, that second cup of coffee is still one of the hardest parts of my day.  I’m sipping it now as I write.  It had become such a deeply ingrained habit to start my day by running through it with her.  I could vent about difficulties at work, the kids talking back, the legos all over the floor, the pimple on my chin, the dog slobbering on the walls, the endless laundry…she listened and made me feel better about all of it.  By the third cup of coffee we’d be saying, “Ok, I better let you go…” but then she’d remember something she wanted to tell me and another twenty minutes passed in a blink.

Sometimes I can’t bear the silence of my mornings now.  I stand in my empty kitchen with my hands wrapped around a warm mug and I still have trouble accepting that I can’t call her.  I can’t quite talk about the minutiae of my life with anyone the way I did with my mother. My literary candles were in fact born out of a necessity to fill these painfully quiet moments. Creating something tangible and beautiful has helped me to process. It feels strange to have a new area of my life that I haven't been able to tell her about. Yet choosing quotes from books that have been with me since childhood feels meaningful and grounding. In fact, my Marmie's Morning Coffee scent is taken from a passage in Little Women that is all about the power of coffee between women. Sitting down to a cup and a chat just always leaves us better than we were. It has a way of making things right.

When we went through all of mom’s Christmas decorations (there were many, because she loved this time of year), I brought a few home that are particularly sentimental.  Among them are three ceramic coasters with painted Christmas scenes.  When I went to use one today, I noticed that they needed to be cleaned.  They were full of faint brown coffee rings, from the mugs of many Christmases past.  And many conversations.  I almost couldn’t bring myself to wipe them off.  They have meaning.  

So this morning, when I should be grading papers, grocery shopping, wrapping gifts, vacuuming the floor, I am sitting with my coffee perched on one of these coasters and I am talking things through with myself.  Often it feels like an exchange because I knew her so well that in many cases I know what she would say.  Other times I have to figure out what I think for myself.  But I know she’s here, with me.  And she’s telling me to use the good roasted peppers for the antipast on Christmas Eve.

Coffee is a lot more than just a drink; it's something happening. Not as in hip, but like an event, a place to be, but not like a location, but like somewhere within yourself. It gives you time, but not actual hours or minutes, but a chance to be, like be yourself, and have a second cup.

- Gertrude Stein