At the surprising age of 31,
I sit in my sunroom, leaned back against my new chair at my old desk
(The desk I found, when I was just 11)
It is 9am and I have class
As I settle in to the second course of my new future I look up to the late morning sun spilling through the east window
I see my dear friend, my roommate Brinlee, sitting beside my plants
Her own laptop and notebooks sprawled out around her
We are taking on this new future together
Call us co-creators
We are just a minute late back from break, the decaf coffee she started in the french press still brewing
As she turns and begins to slowly ground
(the coffee that is) (our grounding is more or less sporadic)
I breath in the deep, rich scent
Here in this sun soaked room in early spring the smell hits me bitter-sweet
No, I’m sorry I don’t mean melancholy
I simply mean the coffee, bitter-sweet
All of a sudden I am five years old, alongside my sister Lindsay
We are small and quiet and standing in the kitchen of our favorite next door neighbor, Marnie
She is tall with long blonde hair and earth-tan skin
She holds the air of a woman I have never seen before
She is nice, she offers us Peach-Os, pouring herself another cup of coffee
Even now I remember that smell in that kitchen
Like April sun touching earth in a deep amber stove
I look up, up, up past her blonde halo to see the many wine bottles along the shelf
The coffee, the wine, the tank top she is wearing, the boyfriend still asleep in her bed
I have been told I should be afraid of these things.
But there is something not yet tangible stirring inside of me
Like the way it feels to close your eyes and listen, right up next to a honey bee
Or the way the light cuts along water ripples, making real life sparkles
dancing
mesmerizing
In this brief moment of memory, the light along the waves and the hum of the bee near my cheek returns
This time with a sort of knowing
I take in the scene again in front of me and realize in a start of gratitude where I sit now
What I hold now
The air of woman who, at the surprising age of 31
Is living with her best friend
And tending to her plants
A woman who is putting on a tank top and walking back to her desk
in a room full of light and art and books and letters and
the smell of coffee
You could say it is a simple thing but,
I still, find it quite surprising