The Night I Drank Espresso During The Year I Gave Up Coffee

What you have to understand about George and Helene is--they are rather dramatic, right on the edge, full-throttle kind of people. One of our get-togethers happened on March 3rd, 2010, when Tom and I were invited to their house for Mexican Chicken. The first course, which we consumed in the kitchen standing around the simmering Mexican Chicken, was Margaritas. The Margaritas were very good, but Helene thought they were a bit weak, so we all got another shot of booze in our glasses. Which really did, in fact, make them better. The double-shot Margaritas went down easy and stimulated all manner of interesting conversation, ranging from prostates to orgasms to Emily Dickinson to yoga. The fire under the Mexican Chicken swimming in green olives and red juice was turned off, and the rice and beans wrapped in tortillas beside it waited patiently for consummation, as we enjoyed ourselves, slowly.

At dinner, every bite was delicious. Beer was served with this main course, and because it was presented as a "bottle of Corolla" (fallout from the Margarita?), we all had a good laugh and then went on to enjoy our Coronas. The beer was perfect because it chased the Mexican bite all the way down.

When I was quite satiated and sure I could not take even one more bite, dessert was set out. Helene, true to her Italian heritage, made me an offer I couldn't refuse. "Look," she said, beaming, "I went to the Wedge for tortes! They're all gluten-free!" And so they were: gluten-free apricot torte, gluten-free raspberry torte, and gluten-free chocolate caramel cream torte. Torte heaven lay in colorful anticipation right before my eyes, any notion of sinful indulgence erased by the lack of gluten. Beautiful. Never mind that I could not take even one more bite.

Then my friend held up a bottle of sparkling champagne. "Asti Gionelli", I read from the label.

"That's Italian!" Helene said.

It was now at the point where I knew I had to acknowledge I was in over my culinary head, and it was time to employ the old internal rationalizations to justify my choices. "Oh what the hell, I'm already into heavy petting, there's no turning back, I'm going all the way, cheers all around!" (An adage that has never failed me.) Then I had a piece of each of the three tasty tortes and washed it all down with champagne (on top of the beer, generous amounts of food, and margaritas).

"Did you ever want to be a nun?" George asked.

"Yes," Helene and I both declared, "A nun, definitely!" And we raised our glasses in frivolous toast to nun-hood and to ourselves.

Dessert was good! Not another bite now. Not another swallow. Have gone over the edge. Move carefully. Let it rest.

That’s when Helene made the announcement, "It's time for coffee." Helene, of course, did not know about my love-hate relationship with the bad black stuff. The love part, justifiably, thrives on that full-bodied aromatic wafting, the rich, heady taste, the way it makes everything all buzzed up and perky. The hate part, unfortunately, stays up all night from a buzz grown old, stomach still churning acid.

"Oh, no. That's where I draw the line,” I said, thinking of my already compromised stomach and what coffee would do to it. “No coffee. Can't do it." Helene looked at me with incredulity, shock on her face.

"It's espresso! You're not having espresso? You have to at least see my contraption...how it's made...how it goes up right here...see?" I watched as she made the expresso, brought out the tiny little dollhouse cups with the tiny little dollhouse handles, poured the four little dollhouse cups full of expresso, and handed me mine. As I raised it to my lips Helene plopped a cube of sugar into it. “Nooooo” I wailed, but it was too late. I drank up the sweet espresso and then had another, without the sugar, to get back the proper balance of dark, rich, strong, deep satisfaction on my pallet. Oh, coffee! Wonderful coffee! As I did so, I knew that my nerves would flash and vibrate like neon-colored street signs all night long as I lay awake. But I also knew, in my present state of mind and physical being, that that present moment was all there was. And I consciously and fully surrendered to it.

That was the night I drank espresso during the year I gave up coffee. I did end up not sleeping until after 4A.M. Since then I've had one more tiny transgression. It happened at Fat Nat's on April 17th. As Tom and I waited for our breakfast to arrive, I received a phone call from sleepy Whitney saying the guy was there to look at the sprinkler system and where was dad? Horrified, he took off, leaving me to eat alone. After he left, there sat his coffee, quietly sizing me up from across the table. I took a couple of dainty sips. It was terrible. Nothing like the espresso swimming dark and full-flavored in Helene’s tiny dollhouse cup. I set it down and pushed it back across the table and out of my life. It wasn’t worth it.

There are now eight months to go, and I’m not sure where they’re going, because I’ve had a metamorphosis. I’ve stopped pretending I don’t like coffee, stopped referring to it as vile. I now own that I am simply a coffee lover in a tea person’s body. Most of the time I will just sniff deeply and walk away. But I also know that sometimes, in the throes of a certain present moment, it’ll be worth it to consciously and completely surrender. And really, that’s what life’s all about, isn’t it?

The Keeping of the Red Dot Within the Yellow Circle

My Wii Fit Plus taught me something today. It has to do with staying balanced within the yellow area while holding a yoga pose. As long as I concentrated on the yellow area, it was fine. But when my attention was caught by something outside of it, I started swaying and losing balance, the red lines going crazy all over the place. The focus of my attention was paramount.

While meditating after my workout, and while trying to steady my inner gaze upon what I Am, thought problems kept filing in. That situation at work, what does it mean and how should I handle it?...the neighbor who triggers my worst, what to do...mirror on car busted by a runaway sideswiper, money, money, money...Stop. I Am. Stop. I Am. Stop. I Am. Wait...work, neighbor, money...

Then there it was. The yellow circle with the red dot inside. A tiny Wii screen right in my head. My focus, my balance. Something to try. The keeping of the red dot within the yellow circle--that connection to...whatever It Is that Is. Balance, strength, the right way and the right place, carried over into the rest of the day. Well, I'll be darned. The rest of the day is just one more Sun Salutation.

Without Brakes Or Cares

Yesterday was a strange day, full of unexpected twists and Uranus-like mini-explosions. Sub zero temperatures, walls of snow several feet high, and five mile an hour bumper to bumper traffic commandeered the morning commute. A few blocks away from work, while idling at a red light, my car unexpectedly lurched forward with sudden acceleration. Stepping on the brake merely produced more uncontrollable seizing. The car revved and lurched like this for a few minutes, even with the brake on, then settled back to normal. Trepidation rode along with me the last few blocks, and I was grateful to step out of that car.

Something else was in the air yesterday. Because of the extreme cold and snow, I stayed in the office rather than going out and about as usual. A feeling happened that was like a cabin-fever, but instead of a cooped-up, let me out-of-here craziness, it was an expansion that pushed against the walls and made everything feel bigger and looser, right where they were. Mostly looser. It had the effect of softening restraints, loosening tongues, mine and everyone else's. I ended up giving rein, and uncharacteristically divulged some information that I normally wouldn't. A little coloring outside the lines. A little revving-up inside the idle.

Fast forward, later in the day. Husband came to exchange cars with me so he could assess what was going on with the bizarre acceleration. A few blocks away the same thing happened to him--idle, rev, lurch, and there's your run-away car. Under the hood, a hose was busted and stuff was leaking all over. Then it wouldn't start. Triple A on the way. Can I come and pick him up?

It occurred to me, in the telling of this to my co-worker (while putting on layers of down and wool before going out the door), how it wasn't me stuck on the freeway with a busted car, holding up traffic or causing accidents, and how it wasn't my husband in the same situation, but pulled over and waiting nicely inside for a tow truck, and how it wasn't either one of us on our way to an emergency room or, god forbid, entering a tunnel filled with dazzling light. How both of us would still get to work on our projects, fill up our days, become grandparents. All of this joined with the loose pathways of the day, and I felt a bit giddy; then for some reason giddy spilled over unchecked, like Jupiter without restraints. WE WERE ALIVE, GOL DANG IT, (just think what could have happened in that car on the freeway...), and I would insist we go out for dinner, to celebrate being alive, to celebrate a first grandchild, to celebrate expansion and daring, to celebrate the harmoniousness of our car falling apart. All of this I announced on my way out the door as I left work early. "Yes," my boss said, "Do it!"

The restaurant was packed and noisy. Very yuppie-like, with high prices, original art of long- necked women with bare breasts, waiters sipping something that looked like brandy, a tall, lanky black musician drinking white wine in between songs. He reminded me of the 70's. And his songs did, too: Dylan, Beatles, Hendrix. We ordered a Monte Volpe Italian Blend red wine with a nice appetizer--scallops with navy beans and pork confit shoulder. Halfway through my first glass of wine I expansively instructed the waiter to deliver another white wine to the musician. The crooner was nostalgically reaching my inner recesses of long-ago places filed under cast your spell on me baby, johnnie be good, and imagine there's no heaven. When dinner came it was chicken breast with root vegetables, spinach and maple sausage. A decision weighed in the balance, but the grandness of the day won out and, like an engine revving without brakes or cares, I ordered another glass of Monte Volpe. We dined, drank, got silly, savored. We toasted to our broken car, and lavished praise on everything we could think of. On the way out, past the musician, Oh my, look at my life, I'm a lot like you are.... And then, a blast of cold air.

Granted, it was only two glasses of wine, but as a sensitive Piscean fish who started out with an empty stomach and usually swims carefully, I felt a little....affected. When I finally lay with head on pillow, mirth was curiously vanquished. The day went spinning; I was too loose at work, I drank too much wine, I spent too much money, this car thing is major, I shouldn't be celebrating, ...And this all accompanied me, troubled, as I fell asleep.

The dream: I was a hosting a large social gathering and was also the nurse in charge there. I realized with a sinking feeling that I had given the wrong med to the wrong patient. It was a cucumber supplement. I started to berate myself, and got that black, awful feeling in the pit of my stomach of having done something wrong. But then I realized how ludicrous it was to get freaked out by having given someone a cucumber supplement by mistake--(unless they are allergic to cucumbers) (but it's a cucumber for god's sake)--and how if I called the doc to report the error he would think I was crazy for calling. I started to look up 'cucumber supplement' in the PDR just to make sure it was harmless. Then I saw the tray of meds and realized they were all scheduled to be given at 1:00 and I was RIGHT ON TIME. Not only was I right on time, but I realized the mature thing to do was to let go of this small, insignificant incident of the cucumber supplement. So not only was I RIGHT ON TIME but I was also RIGHT ON TRACK. Scrupulosity: Busted! What a rocking dream!

Then I woke up with a headache (the wine). I looked at my Ask And It Is Given flip calendar and it said: "There is nothing that you cannot be, do, or have; and we want to assist you in achieving that. But we love where you are right now, even if you do not, because we understand how joyful the journey to where you want to go will be." I thought about my dream. The car. The night before. And I got it. (Or, more accurately, got more of it.)

It is not the divulging of too much or too little, or being too happy or too sad, or feeling too loose or too tight, or coloring outside the lines, or never even taking the crayons out of the box, or drinking too much wine, or having no wine at all. It is not those things. Rather, it is that one conditioned, unconscious, tiny little thought that begins to build the CASE AGAINST whatever it is. Too little, too much, too this, too that. Before you know it, a whole complex is built.

Stop! It is what it is. Let. It. Be.

Quite an interesting and unusual ride....yesterday. It took awhile for things to come full circle in my head--the car trouble, the loose connections, the filled-up-full excesses, the dream. I decided my run-away car engine was a metaphor for certain kinds of thought processes--you know, the Judge Judy ones, the ones that are just....too something, too this, too that. Anyway, that's how I'm looking at it.

It's always good to take something away, so I'm taking this away from yesterday: Do not judge an engine revving without brakes or cares. And do not judge anything else either.