(1)nothing like a good cup of coffe. (2) Paul came in one day. (3) Once.

[flordehinojos]

Nothing like a good cup of coffee

by "flor de hinojos"

"There is nothing like a good cup of coffee to wake you up in the mornings." That is what Julia says. Julia says, she, "cannot think clearly until", her, "first cup o' coffee."

She says the coffee, "tunes up your body, your mind. It adjusts the lens of your morning", is what Julia says.

I first heard Julia say this more than twenty years ago, when I first met her in those apartments where we used to live.

More than twenty years later, Julia is still my friend. She still drinks her morning coffee to tune up her body, adjust her lens, clear her mind.

"I need my strong black nectar to greet the day, with whatever it brings, more than ever," she says. And still, when I visit Julia, no matter what time of day, she pulls out her espresso coffee pot which, she fills with water and the grinds of espresso coffee, the smells of which begin to fill the house as the water boils and the coffee perculates.

Then, when it is perculated, Julia brings out the tray with the two demitasse cups. She pours the coffee in the tiny espresso cups and says, "a toast to bringing into harmony the rythm of the body, the hues and news of the day, the gossip of the hour.


Coffee is and has always been Julia's offering par excellence. Coffee is how she brings you into the intimacy of her surrounds, her thoughts.

Coffee is how she tunes-up and relaxes at the same time.
Coffee is how you know Julia welcomes you and makes you feel comfortable... the coffee, the aroma, the talk, the gossip.

It is "the gods' nectar that lift you up". She says.

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PAUL CAME IN ONE DAY

by flor de hinojos

Paul came in one day, just so open with communication, this to say the least, was not his usual pattern. Usually Paul is very reserved and doesn't like to talk all that much. I am not sure what hit him that day, or as you say, what bug hit him. He was out cutting the grass on a very hot day and was sweating copiously when he said he had to come in and sit and rest for a while. "I'll dry myself with this towel", he said, "just enough to be able to sit down and rest a couple of minutes".

"I just made some cool lemonade, hon," I said. "I'll serve you some".

Now, Paul had never had anyone to spoil him much Perhaps his mother before she died, but that was, o such a long time ago, when Paul was still a child, a little boy, but since then there had been on one to spoil him.

I filled two tall glassess with ice and poured us some lemonade. I put the glasses on a tray and placed the tray on the coffee table in front of Paul, and then i sat next to him on the sofa.

Paul was neither fat nor skinny. In my eyes he was "just right", although, he was always saying he wanted to lose 10 to 15 lbs to get his weight in line but he never did; Paul was neither tall nor short.
He was in my eyes, again, "just right" and I always felt protected in the shelter of his blonde hairy arms and red hairy chest.

Paul gulped down about half of his lemonade before setting the glass back down on the tray. He then put his arm around my shoulders and said, "let me look at your eyes Sylvia. I want to see the life that you have in them." With that he started kissing me. Got more amorous by the nanosecond and before I knew it he had me laying on the sofa unbottoning my shorts and asking me to pull his shorts down. We made great love that afternoon. He stayed inside me for the longest time that afternoon and when I pointed out that he had to get back to mowing the grass, Paul got hard again, and said, "no. I don't".

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ONCE
by flor de hinojos

It was only once that I had a conversation with you. Why then are you so indelibly set in my soul, I ask myself?

"All I want is to be understood for whom I am", you said and went on to tell me who you are. In that roadmap to yourself, I travelled through the streets of a child who is very loudly screaming for his father's hand: his learnings, his teachings, his love, his acceptance.

"the past is very painful", you said. "Yes", I thought. Each corner of a missed connection is am empty place. Each empty place is filled with longing, each longing is filled with questions, and those questions are filled with the outstretched hand of a child who must take his empty hand back, and place it inside his pockets. A hand that will be outstretched again, hungrier even, because of the previous hollowness of a missed relationship.

"I don't know how to get to the street, or to the corner where I will make the connection that wil give me the validation that I am needing in my life", you stated, not quite, but it was implied.

"The main connection is now with your self", I thought, "and with the grieving that needs to take place for the nurtuting of the soil to begin and the forgiving which has to happen before a relationship to whatever degree, can take place ..."

I thought and said nothing... I saw you were only listening to your anger.

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[whistle]

1. Wow, very powerful, moving.....thank you!

[flordehinojos]

2. no... it's more like, I, THANK YOU!

[oneighty]

3. Very good flor de hinojos

I have seen many withdraw the empty hand-and not only children withdrew the empty hand and now and then I was to blame.

And I look back past the years in shame and ask myself "Why?"

180

[flordehinojos]

4. thank you, oneighty.

i think we are all guilty of withdrawing the empty hand sometimes, and sometimes perhaps of causing some hand to withdraw in emptiness; and most especially when we don't realize that that is what we are doing.

[Hidden Stillness]

5. That was a Pleasure to Read

Those were all great, and each one had its own mood and atmosphere. The first one was a fun kind of a description, where it makes you notice and appreciate an ordinary thing that you already like, the second would've made a seemlessly told scene that was part of a larger story, and the third was suddenly a far deeper, more serious mood than either before it, and beautifully felt and told. They all had a lot of detail, and yet just jumped along like great reading. The first one was like a tribute to a detail of life; the second, storytelling; and the third was written like prose poetry. It reads as if it flows out easily, (but that doesn't necessarily mean that it does). Very nice.

[flordehinojos]

6. thanks much for your post ...

:) :-) :) i appreciate your comments.