Slow Coffee, Slow Run

Went for a run this morning with Chris. He hadn't run in a couple weeks but was willing to take on a five-mile hilly loop when I said we would go slowly. We did. It was good. We talked and ran. I showed him the cemetery and the house with the pool out of which I hope Phoebe Cates will rise. (I don't know that anyone's ever swum in the pool. The gate is unlocked so I'm likely to dive in someday. No one will mistake me for Phoebe.)

After the run, we sat on my front steps drinking water and he told me about his coffee maker dying. A programmable drip machine, it used to brew as he slept. Convenient! He replaced it with an insulated French Press. Not so convenient. He has to wait for water to boil. There are fewer cups of coffee. But the coffee tastes incredible. 

Chris isn't lazy. He's building a fine-art business and hustles to make it happen. But, he says, I miss coffee being ready when I came downstairs. I get that.

My coffee hasn't been ready when I wake for years. I use an Aeropress and hand-crank grinder. A single cup of coffee requires two minutes of cranking, time to boil water, and another minute to press and then clean out the thing. It's as inconvenient as any coffee you can imagine. 

Which is what I like about it. 

It's not just the press that makes the best coffee. It's the pressing of it. The time we take making coffee makes it taste better. Slowing down to make a cup of coffee, that's just choosing to be part of living. 

It's okay if you don't buy that, but know that drip machines make weak coffee. Don't even bring up Keurigs. That thing is poison to the earth and makes pseudo coffee. Screw that. 

Our slow run felt good. Moving slowly, I savor the run. And why hurry the run anyway? 

It's the same with the coffee. We each took time to make coffee. It was slower than his automatic drip machine. All of five minutes slower. What were we going to do with that five minutes that's better than creating something? 

The act of creation, that's the best part of waking up. Forget about Folgers in your cup.