Coffee

Finding Everyday Inspiration, Day 11

If we were having coffee right now…

I would look you in the eyes. Thinking about things, I choose something to say to you.

“How’s life?”

~ A very broad inquiry. But a conversation starter nonetheless. Any number of paths to undertake. How much do we want here? Why would I care? This, a general maneuver to break silence. A masterstroke to expel the dreaded awkwardness of these intervening moments of thinking, and not saying. Why not begin with an enumeration on my own lively exploits? Well, perhaps I don’t find recent first person events particularly noteworthy, or I’m pretty sure you will not care. And yet, I must look within myself to see if I even care, about the things you are about to say and about the things I am leaving unsaid. But here we are. Coffee. And something must be said. So we say it. ~

If we were having coffee right now…

I take a swig with confidence. I have my options and I take one. I bring up a specific problem I have been having. Work, relationship, a dream I just had and its potential meaning.

I haven’t quite unpacked whether I am telling you this because I honestly believe you can help me solve it, or at least think about it in a different, more enlightening fashion, or simply because I wish to vent about it to another person. What is the distinction to be made here? In one sense, I hope for a conversation to be engaged. I wish to talk with you, as opposed to at you. Maybe you can help, maybe you can’t. But I am entreating you to listen. Will you? Will I do the same?

If we were having coffee right now…

Could we enjoy a comfortable silence? Just a few nothings, between old friends. Some say the true value of a relationship is this test, to be able to share this immaculate silence. Shall we? Let us drink the coffee.

If we were having coffee right now…

I would tell you about … what I’m trying to say here. But we’re out of coffee. ~

to be continued.