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July 15, 2003 COFFEE PHILOSOPHY There is this thing we came up with at work, call it a philosophy, a mantra, a chant, a doctrine, a manifesto... whatever you will. Pertaining to the art and craft of brewing coffee, we decided that the strong brew it strong, and the weak, undoubtedly, brew it weak. Now this, I so sagely realized, can be applied to all aspects of life.Strength. It is a word, and an action I have always admired. Strength in mind, body, and heart. Not some antiquated and misused notion of something so banal as spiritual strength. Not some over-inflamed dullard lifting massive weights ponderously over his fat head. Not some brain-dead miscreant so hopped up on booze and designer drugs he can take on any and all comers in a pugilistic display of pure ferocity. No. I'm talking real strength. The kind of strength it takes to walk across a busy city street with only a cane and four senses to guide you. The kind of unparalleled, unfathomable strength it takes for a man or a woman, whose body, so twisted and warped by some callous disease or unfortunate accident, looking almost inhuman, to walk a crowded side walk, disregarding the stares and sideways glances. Lurching along like some carnival freak; our minds hoping and yearning that whatever did that to them, doesn't happen to us. Now that is strength! Strength. There are different degrees of strength. You have the aforementioned. Then there are also quiet strengths. People who hold the door open for others, regardless of age, skin color, or sex, people who wait patiently in line, even while all others brim with a fervent impatience and child-like maturity, people who allow their actions to speak for them, not their words, or their attitude, or their clothes, or their money, or their car. Strength. My father has a quiet sort of strength. My mother has the kind that bristles, like a fiery emblem held aloft by some knight in the throes of a bloody battle. My sister has a surprising strength that surfaces when you least expect it. My brother has a certain self-less strength; more often than not, he does for others before he does for himself. And then there's my love, Mel. Her strength is all consuming, silent, but evinced, not dormant, but also not ostentatious. She doesn't have to prove anything to herself or to me. She is who she is, because she knows who she is. She bears one of the rarest strengths of them all, knowing oneself. Strength. [Add Comment] [View Comments] 2 |
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