RITUAL - Morning Coffee

I wake up. I get out of bed. I make coffee. I get back in bed. Repeat.

A video by Kate Devine

The Pavlovian scent of coffee - the pleasantest of alarm clocks. And on rougher mornings, it’s the only thing that has us salivating for anything but sleep.

Almost every morning I do the same thing: I wake up. I think. I set an intention for the day. I check my phone (multiple times), I get out of bed, make coffee, and get back in bed. I think. I sip. I think. I sip until I’m done my coffee or my thinking and the day begins.

Some mornings I have 10 minutes, some, I have two hours. Still others I lay on the couch or sit in my window seat and watch traffic commuting by. Sometimes, away from home, I watch the morning bustle of a city I don’t yet know. But on as many mornings as I can, I perform this ritual, simply because it reminds me that I am happy and grateful.

The ritual began in a phase of exploration, years when I traveled a lot, excited to live out of a suitcase and strangely delighted to wake up forgetting which city I was in.

I loved waking up in crisp hotel linens, in a bed bigger than one person would ever need. I loved to stretch out diagonally, making snow angels in the sheets before opening the black out curtains to see a new city spread out below me. I loved making coffee in those small machines by the minibar and I would relish that moment, the morning coffee, in bed with pillows propped, thinking, sipping and checking my phone.

This sense of discovery and freedom was a stark contrast to how I had felt in the years prior - the years where I had felt trapped as if I lived under a damp grate on a busy street, my mouth pressed up against the slats trying to breathe different air. Difficult times in my life where the simple joy of coffee in bed would have been unimaginable for so many reasons, mostly because joy was unimaginable at the time too.*

So travel was precious to me not only because I loved to discover new things, but it was a sacred symbol for breathing different air.

So now, by new choices and desires, I am no longer exploring cities as much and instead exploring stillness, back at home. I love waking up in my own bed, a bed perfectly sized for me with my legs stretched out in all directions. I love sitting with my pillows propped, sipping, checking my phone and thinking, this too is joy.

I exhale and smile at the joy of something as ordinary and sacred as a morning coffee in my own bed.

*I didn’t expand on this experience as I assume it would have been a repetition for some of you who have read my book. Though I know a number of you don’t know my story, so if you are interested in knowing more, comment below and I can write more about this if it’s helpful.