Coffee Meet-up

Coffee is said to encourage conversations. I have a virtual coffee date with my readers once in a while where I imagine what we would talk about if we were face-to-face, sitting down to coffee.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you how much I have missed meeting you over these past few months. It isn’t just the pandemic or the changed world order or the fact that we actively avoid the people we had loved to meet.
I would tell you that it’s the heartfelt connection that matters and if you allow yourself to be real and flawed and vulnerable, that connection is easier to forge.
You would laugh, for you know how much I like hiding away, in more ways than one. You would look down into the cup, seemingly observing the coffee and would ask me gently if I was ready to open up.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that I haven’t been writing much, nor getting the yearning, for I have been feeding my soul in other ways. I would tell you of things that I write, like those little snippets of text you see on product packaging. I would point out that I had always read that hungrily and the newspaper bags, opening the glued flaps  gingerly lest they tear and turn it all around till I had read everything on that paper bag.
I would also tell you that given a chance I would write only for myself, of myself and of thoughts, impressions and memories.

If we were having coffee, I would scrape the metal chair back on the cobblestones and get up to fetch another cup. We would be in our favourite place, the bamboo garden, with racks loaded with magazines from all around the world. I would get you milky and sweet cup and refill mine with strong bitter brew. We would look around, lost in our thoughts, and yet thinking nearly the same things, revisiting the beloved memories of winding roads and long walks in cold weather.
I would ask you if you have been visiting our favourite haunts and you would say no, they were not the same without me.

If we were having coffee, I would ask you what you have been reading these days. While listening to you, I would half smile and half turn my face to look across the table, to think of those other books I had never read but knew through you and how they had made you feel.
I would also think of the books that I had borrowed from you and how they had changed my perspective.

If we were having coffee, I would sit up and sigh and interrupt you mid-sentence to ask if you remembered the time we would simply walk up to a park bench and sit together in comfortable silence, not needing to talk. You would smile that smile which made the corners of your mouth all crinkly and say yes, those are the best moments of our life.

If we were having coffee, I would promise to meet up again soon while picking my things, preparing to leave and you would tell me in your low mellifluous voice, yes, if we are alive.

This post is written as part of Blogchatter’s #MyFriendAlexa.

Advertisement