I’m sipping my first Americano from the new espresso machine. The machine-that-had-been died. This new machine is the clear master of the coffee universe, and it has the features to prove it…but it takes the might of the pantheon of greek gods to lock in the porto filter – and the simultaneous requirement to be as delicate as a surgeon. 🙂 New skills in development, clearly, and some concerns about whether I will ever ever sleep through someone else making a shot of espresso ever again. I sure didn’t this morning. I woke at whatever brutally early hour my partner was testing the new machine – eagerly, and with great skill, I don’t doubt, but banging out the puck into the knock out box (I’m sure it has some proper name…) is as loud as someone hammering nails into the wall to hang paintings. Pretty loud at 4:30 am. The new machine is a birthday gift to my traveling partner – and a combined household effort to make it happen promptly. It’s a delight to have this tasty coffee first thing, and over time I’m sure I’ll get used to the different sounds of this machine, and able to sleep through much of it.

Here’s the best part of my morning coffee…it’s enough. Honestly? It’s enough when it is a french press of pre-ground drip coffee. It’s enough when I’m out of coffee and resort to black tea. It’s enough because that’s truly all I ‘need’… and…if I’m honest with myself, I’m addicted to the amount of caffeine I get each day in this form, and it’s both a preference and maintenance of that addiction. So. ‘Need’ is an appropriate word here, and I’ve got no baggage with this relatively harmless habit. The important word is ‘enough’. The experience of my morning coffee has varied over the years – and nearly always been ‘enough’. It’s a powerful lesson in sufficiency; take away someone’s addiction, and see what they find is an acceptable stop-gap measure, or a worthy substitute. That’s when I see directly into the face of sufficiency. My choices aren’t always about enough. My brain is very skilled at making ‘more’ seem reasonable, and from reasonable things easily escalate to ‘achievable’ and from ‘achievable’ the distance to ‘must have’ is short enough to traverse with great ease – and little mindfulness. I gotta work on that.

A different coffee, on a different day, in another place; memories of love are sometimes captured in pictures of coffee.

This morning I woke with a headache and a stuffy head. I’m not sick, just getting used to the change in household climate that accompanies the change in weather. My room feels too hot. I haven’t found the correct balance of bed-clothes, yet…which suddenly finds me feeling rather embarrassed to give it even a thought; how many people are struggling to sleep through the cold nights of winter because they just don’t have enough? My heart aches in a strange way I don’t recall feeling often in years past. I’m moved to participate in the holiday charity drives in the office out of some soft yearning to ease the suffering of the world, more than to avoid the embarrassment I used to feel because I didn’t consider the human experience broadly enough to be truly moved (and while aware of that, I didn’t know quite what to do about it at that time).

I am thinking, now, of all the things that drive humanity’s winter holidays…feasting and gifting, hospitality and generosity, the warmth and glow of inclusive celebration. It’s easy to get lost in the media spin, the marketing, and the advertising pushing consumers to consume – and to buy – and there’s so much more to it than dollars, at least there is for me.

Following my path where it leads.

Today is a good day to think ahead to the holidays. Today is a good day to plan and prepare for what is ahead, and to roll with the changes when life delivers on a different promise altogether. Today is a good day to hand craft something to enjoy, or to give – or both. Today is a good day to take care of me, and to appreciate others. What a rich palette life paints with; today is a good day to enjoy the colors. Today is a good day to celebrate with the world.