I dump the compacted coffee grounds from the basket of the stove top espresso maker into the compost and sweep my index finger in the metal basket to free the remaining grains. The day old coffee puck smells like an ashtray, and reminds me of my mother.
*
I used to lie in bed listening to the coffee percolator burble. I sniffed for the first whiff of coffee and singed tobacco tinged with freshly lit sulfur from a spent match. The signals. To be sure the moment was really right – that I could squeeze between an inhale, an exhale and a sip, when she would be happiest – I sang “Mary Had a Little Lamb” twice. And then I bubbled into the kitchen. With an elbow propped on the counter, hand raised, mother gently held her cigarette. Beside her were an empty ashtray and a full cup of fresh coffee.
“I’ll make your cinnamon toast and vanilla milk in a minute. Just let me finish this first,” she said.
*
I press freshly ground beans into the espresso basket and set the Bialetti on the stove. Steam hisses from it as the water boils and rushes through the basket into the top compartment. At the kitchen table, I wait and look out at the chickadees gathering at the feeder. I wait for the day to pour open, liquid with possibility, for daylight, like cream swirling into coffee, to lighten the dark morning hours. I drink the quiet seconds before my children thunder into the kitchen.
*
Mid-afternoon my mother stopped time. In the living room, she gazed through the window to the harbour, waiting for Dad to come up the road from the fish plant where he worked. She waited with a full ashtray and a half cup of lukewarm coffee. I nestled into her, placing my fingertip into the pink cave of her longest fingernail – a small place I could hide and insert myself into her quiet time.
My parents didn’t smoke or drink coffee, so why did tears well up in my eyes as I finished reading this! And the blending of past and present – just wonderful!
LikeLiked by 2 people
I’m so pleased it touched you, Shubha. Thanks for letting me know.
LikeLike
Wonderful post! Reminded me… My adopted mom smoked and in the mornings had coffee but in the afternoon or evening had either wine or Ginger Ale. But always the cigarettes. My adopted dad smoked cigars and pipes. He had coffee in the am and then bourbon, beer or water with lemon in the afternoon/evenings. I don’t smoke (used to but quit) and in a mostly unused drawer I still have an ashtray that my adopted parents used during their last visit. I open the drawer and smell them… and remember the love.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Woah, I absolutely loved that picture you used at the end.
http://www.tchouseblog.wordpress.com
LikeLiked by 2 people
I loved reading this. You bring back some very interesting memories for many, I think. We were not allowed to appear or speak before the second cup was all but consumed and the cigarette finished. Wow! Thank you for sharing this.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I wonder what my children’s memories will be about me and coffee. When they were little on Christmas morning no one could open their presents until I had a cup of coffee in hand.
LikeLiked by 2 people
🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
My mother, too. I loved this. ❤
LikeLiked by 2 people
I think darn near everyone smoked in the 60’s and 70’s. Did you? I did until my early 20’s and then married a man who did not smoke.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I did not. I smoked in the 90s and until 2014. I had to quit because of peer pressure or whatever. Now I Vape.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Awesome post, Susanne. I could smell the love mixed in with the aroma of coffee and cigarettes.
A real gem.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks, Sheila. She did her best.
LikeLiked by 1 person
How very nice. We are there with you the adult and you the kid and your mom. Really enjoyed it.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you, Ellen.
LikeLike
Beautiful. The smells and what they can do.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I think scent is the most powerful sense for stirring memories. They’re like time travel, sending you backwards as fast as a shooting star.
LikeLiked by 2 people
“a small place I could hide and insert myself into her quiet time.”💖
When I was a child, occasionally I would be awake when my father rose before sunrise to get read to go to work and seeing the pinkish-red end of his freshly-lit cigarette in the darkness gave me a mysterious feeling.
LikeLiked by 2 people
And that crackling noise of burning paper and tobacco when the smoker inhaled. Mystery upon mystery.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yesss!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Beautifully expressed evocation
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you, Derrick.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Love this. I grew up in a household of smokers too. Whiffs of coffee combined with cigarette smoke brings me back to my childhood too, when life was simpler yet full of so much more possibility than now. Although I love how everything is smoke-free now, it IS hard to come across that scent combination and the memories it evokes today.
Deb
LikeLiked by 3 people
I’m so glad the restaurants and bars and offices are smoke free now, too. And airplanes! Remember traveling on airplanes when smoking was allowed?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oh yes!
LikeLiked by 1 person
It’s fascinating to me, how your mind works and gets mine to work! The coffee aroma, the cigarette smoke–so much my mother, too.
LikeLiked by 3 people
When you think about it, both smoking and drinking coffee, are addictive, self-soothing activities. Our poor mother’s!
LikeLike
Such an interesting piece of writing, Susanne. I’m going to follow you and read more of what you write…
LikeLiked by 2 people
Hi Ronnie, Thanks for following. I’ve joined your club, too.
LikeLike
❤️ and Happy Mother’s Day
LikeLiked by 2 people
And back at you, Donna.
LikeLike
Thank you, Donna. Were you treated to treats?
LikeLike
This line gave me chills: “I wait for the day to pour open, liquid with possibility, for daylight, like cream swirling into coffee, to lighten the dark morning hours.”
I love that! This is such a great piece. So subtle and moving. 😀
LikeLiked by 4 people
Thanks, Crystal. Even though I don’t smoke, I still love the smell of a freshly lit cigarette combined with coffee.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Just lovely, Susanne. You’ve conjured up the ghost through the objective correlative of the coffee! Woohoo!
LikeLiked by 2 people
And Happy Mother’s Day!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yikes. What the heck is the objective correlative? I’m hoping its a good thing.
LikeLiked by 1 person
First time I had a chance to use that phrase in 20 years. LOL thank you for asking. It’s a wonderful way of writing and was coined by TS Eliot. You make the object do the work for you. In this case coffee is the object.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well I’ll be darned. Thanks for teaching me that, Luanne.
LikeLiked by 1 person
[Snickers] Not that I don’t have to look up how to spell it, still.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is a gorgeous piece of writing Susanne – I love the way you use the detail of the coffee and the cigarettes to illuminate everything else.
LikeLiked by 2 people
The idea came from a book called “Writing the Memoir” by Judith Barrington. She suggested taking something from your everyday life and using it to reflect on the past, moving backwards and forwards in time. I like how it worked out, too,
LikeLiked by 2 people