My first experience with coffee was on a farm in Narrogin, three hours south of Perth. I say "experience" because I'd had coffee before, but it was without context. It was a cup of hot liquid that kept me awake. It didn't mean anything, and was immediately forgotten. In Narrogin, I remember everything.
I was 16 years old, and staying in a big farm shed owned by a friend of our youth group leader. In my church days, we would go on camps during the Spring break. We'd all bundle into a minibus with our sleeping bags, Bibles and notebooks, and drive for hours to somewhere remote, and we'd just exist together for a week. Someone would bring a guitar, someone else a football. I brought a camera.
At sixteen, everything is exploding in a person. Our juvenile souls are reaching, stretching out, tendrils of naivety and curiosity testing the waters of the universe. In church camps like these, we discover our spiritual shapes, the light parts, and the darknesses in us. We feel everything. There was a girl I liked, and it was that camp where I watched her fall in love with someone else.
Each night we'd all stay up late, and in the mornings we slept in. I discovered I could wake early by not wearing socks - the chill would find its way through my sleeping bag and between my toes, and I'd have to get up.
One morning, my toes woke me at quarter to six. I pulled on some boots, wrapped a blanket around my shoulders, and slowly negotiated my path out of the shared sleeping quarters, treading carefully through the sea of snoring faces and haphazard limbs. There was a kitchenette area with a stovetop kettle from the dark ages, and a Tupperware container full of tea bags, and a jar of instant coffee.
Full disclosure, instant coffee hurts. It really does. If I drink it nowadays, it shoots hot needles into my skull. But back then, I had the immortality of youth on my side, so I didn't notice the pain. I just heaped two teaspoons into a mug and poured in the water, sending steam swirling up to the window, fogging the pastel sunlight that cut across the glass.
With one hand gripping my blanket-cloak at my throat, and the other holding my mug, I edged open the door and made my way to the firepit. The coal was white, but still warm, with an occasional ember flaring orange in the breeze. I sat on an eggshell green 70's kitchen chair, stared into the coals, and sipped my coffee. With each sip, my vision would defocus from the steam, and my world would contract to the space between the mug and my lips. Hot coffee, crisp air, warm blanket, watercolour hues.
I felt like a piece of paper, creased in the middle, with its edges being slid together. I was the crease, elevated high above the campfire in a sharp fold of limitless perspective. I was outside of time, on a knife edge of aloneness and clarity, and in a single breath I knew the truth about myself. And then the page flattened back out, and the steam from my breath danced with the steam from my cup, and the sunlight became solid on the salmon gums across the valley.
Eventually others arrived. The girl I liked sat across from me, eyes lidded, lost in the coals. Her hair was a mess, and I liked that she didn't care that it was a mess. She blinked then, and looked up, catching me watching her. I smiled and tipped my head slightly, and she returned my smile with a boyish grin, scrunching her eyes shut and rubbing her palm across her face. I knew then that we would always be this, and never more than this, and it was enough. I swirled the remaining liquid around my mug, and it flickered back at me a sky of dazzling pale blue.
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These days, when I reduce coffee to the level of a basic drug, a "caffeine hit", I actually feel guilty. I feel like I'm disrespecting the experience, like the coffee is a character and I'm treating it poorly. Like an effervescent friend kept around just to make me laugh, or a relationship that exists just to avoid feeling lonely.
In story, there are characters that step in to arrest the momentum of a protagonist. A villain steps in the way of victory. A mentor steps in to realign our compass. A jester steps in to remind us to enjoy the moment. An ally tells us we're not alone. These characters are written in to a story because without them the protagonist will hurtle too far in the wrong direction. It's our tendency to stop thinking, once we believe we're on the right track. We become lazy, or heroic, or zealous, but it's all a kind of tunnel-vision until someone helps us get perspective. We need these moments of perspective.
Coffee, taken mindfully, can be an excellent character addition to our lives. As protagonists in our own stories we can define its role every time we drink it. A line in the sand. A chapter shift. A turning point. A starting point. An escape. A reprieve. A confessional. An honest moment. A clarifying moment.
And the caffeine can become a secondary thing, a bonus. Coffee draws us into mindful awareness, then caffeine kicks us out to action, with the difference being the direction in which we launch ourselves.
If you’re thinking “this isn’t really about coffee at all, it’s about mindfulness," well, you’d be right. You don't have to be a coffee drinker. This isn't about a beverage. But all of us will have things in our lives that we unconsciously treat like a drug - I do this to feel this - and if we had any power to write our own stories, we'd want to give these characters better roles, or cut them out.
For me, I'm starting with coffee. It's in my routine already, and all I need to do is remember to crease that page, and slide the edges together, and allow my perspective to lift. My first coffee is with Rach, so it plays a kind of "ally" role - reminding us both that we do life together. My second is often taken in the middle of all the hustle of my working day, and so I let it play the "mentor" role, and I take a moment to check in on my direction.
Whatever "coffee" might mean to you, my encouragement is to respect the experience, and consider what character role it could play in your day. Even the simplest thing can make an impact on a story. Sometimes, it makes such an impact you remember it thirty years later. Even if it's instant coffee.
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How would a storyteller write your life?
The Storytellers Guide explores how a storyteller might approach everyday situations, in order to deliver a compelling character who experiences meaning and transformation. Read more at www.thestorytellersguide.com