No high-concept stuff this week, let’s tap the source—some thoughts on the beauty of reading with a coffee—
Early morning. Light through the window is blue-blackish, the stimulation swarm is a few hours away. My world is very little: comfort, words, remains of any dreams. It’s languor meets a rising glow in the blood.
When the jolt arrives: the minor boom. Aka, hope.
I like to read poetry first thing. Frequently it’s stuff I’ve read before—Green Squall by Jay Hopler was today. With fresh coffee, old things read unremembered.
Wow, the afternoon coffee! Not every day, but some days, I leave the desk, walk five minutes to the shop, order an espresso, pour a glass of soda water, read a couple pages of a novel on my phone. Fifteen minutes later, braced, I can bear the laptop again.
Coffee with a book isn’t an internal experience, it’s an adjacent one—a sideways step, still embodied, but more mind than brain? Along those lines. An attention to the instinctual.
Standard orders?
In the morning I do a latté first, followed by two espressos, with some poems, then about an hour with newspapers online.
After lunch is black drip, iced in hot weather—instant or McDonald’s on days I don’t care, a fancy pourover if I do—and a novel.
Evening, it’s a decaf espresso with a cookie or some chocolate-covered almonds, and maybe a magazine, maybe whatever fiction or nonfiction I’m digging most.
A primordial image lodged deep in my unconscious, but not so deep I can’t find it: on my first trip to France, a family trip when I was a teenager, my mother in Paris, a café, a waiter makes her café au lait at the table: two little silver pots, one pouring black coffee, one pouring hot milk. And her looking so contented.
There is so much pandemonium in a day, so many opportunities for joy, anxiety, pain, feeling vexed, feeling stymied—coffee with a book is none of that. Coffee with a book just gives.
Something I saw a young woman quote on Instagram last week, from Little Women by Louisa May Alcott: “I’d rather take coffee than compliments just now.” Exactly.
🪴 Hey. If you enjoy these meditations, I’m only able to take time to write them because some of you—less than 5% of the 4,500+ of you—support my work.
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Meditations in an Emergency is a weekly mini-essay from Rosecrans Baldwin about something beautiful. Paying subscribers receive a Sunday supplement with 3+ ideas of things to love, plus a monthly dispatch from the road, for some inbox wanderlust ⛰️
Rosecrans is the author of Everything Now, winner of the California Book Award. His most recent novel, The Last Kid Left, was one of NPR’s Best Books of the Year. Titles mentioned in this newsletter are stored on a Bookshop list, which pays a small commission. For more—books, articles, etc—check out rosecransbaldwin.com
You know, this is—excuse me—a damn fine post about coffee.