Prendrez un café

A friend of mine contacted me the other day, it was late in Toronto, Canada, and she wasn't sleeping all too well. She told me she had a shithouse day, so painted it out. A mess of oil paints and a depiction of a latte later, and she was desensitised to the pain and worries she had been feeling.

We talked about what coffee meant to us - not as a day started or energy giver, but as a catalyst for our friendship, for comfort, for social wellbeing.

But I had a negative wave flood over me. "I hate drinking coffee because of the fact that it is not endless, that its goodness is ephemeral." My friend butted in, "but its always a relief when you get it again."

"It's so perfect - the concept, the taste, the look. But then its all over" I continued. I was a Negative Nancy and I didn't know where this was all coming from. But my friend quickly came to my rescue, reminding me of the wonders it had done for us as two connected individuals - oceans, hemispheres and sometimes what felt like worlds apart. "I feel the warmth stays with you for a while - that comfort. Not forever. But when we got coffee it felt like it carried on with us on our walks."

I was thrown back into the vivid life of ours, the flanerie between the two of us that we shared, idly wandering through the city, our stopping points limited to bookshops, parks and cafés. We'd grab coffee and sit and chat. Sometimes read, sometimes write. Sometimes shit talk. And once the cups were empty and our bellies filled, we were off again, giggling, silent, in deep discussion, covering our eyes with the viewfinders of our cameras. And when the warmth of the coffee left our bellies and seeped out, finally leaving our fingers and rendering us cold morsels once more, we'd bee line to another café. Sit, sip, sidewind, repeat.

And so yesterday morning when I sent Matt a message which equated to the following:

"Dead face --> Coffee Cup --> Sassy Latina"

We walked to Merewether and grabbed coffee. We sat, smiled at the sea, sipped on our warm brews and swerved and swayed back home with the cups in our hands, and I remembered Monica's words. Coffee has never been for me an energy provider or addictive substance, but its associations with good memories keeps me coming back. 

You see, coffee is a universal word for good chill times with people you love and/or want to get to know more about. It won't say that in the dictionary, but we all know it to be true.

It's just over two weeks till I'm back sipping espresso in the streets of Paris, so here's a video of the last time I meandered around with Monica in a special place that will always be home.