No Coffee, No Prana

I love coffee so much. I have an Verismo espresso machine, a milk frother to make lattes, , a pour-over thing if I want a one cup of perfectly brewed coffee, and a hot water kettle with a goose-neck spout for directing the hot water precisely over the grounds. I also have a  french press for when I want 2 cups.

My daughter manages a Starbucks in Portland, and she has educated me on so many aspects of coffee and coffee culture and I love that we both share this hobby, this love of the bean.

My favorite coffees tend to come from Africa. I love Ethiopian Yirgacheffe coffee the most. The thought of the taste of that coffee is the only thing that has gotten me out of bed this winter, which is now in day 857.

One cup of perfectly brewed Ethiopian Yirgacheffe, sipped in reverential silence, is my drug of choice.

Today was Day 1 of trying to get rid of coffee to see if it helps my eczemic eye.

Without coffee I feel dumb. Without coffee I do not sparkle. Without coffee I have no motivation to do anything except nap. All day I walked around in a funk.

Thank god it wasn’t my night to teach, but I did go to class. It was the perfect class, too: a meditative flow. Anything more vigorous and I wouldn’t have made it. At the start of class we were asked, on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being extremely high energy, what our energy number was. I held up 1 finger, and I thought of making it my middle one.

Patabhi Jois, the father of Ashtanga Yoga, is reputed  to have said, “No coffee, no prana.”

He got that right.