#276: Of morning coffee and tenderness ☕
"Be the weirdo who dares to enjoy.” –Elizabeth Gilbert
Dear reader,
Today’s newsletter is full of things that make me smile. So I made a list of what I’m feeling grateful for as I write this:
It rained in Bangalore, and the weather improved (ever so slightly!)
My coffee cabinet has four different local brands to pick from. Heck yeah.
I’m literally feeling like an artwork, wearing a cyanotype tee with petals I made over the weekend.
New season of Hacks just dropped.
I’m going to Calcutta aka Alipore HQ in two days, and I can’t wait to hug my Mom, sister and adorable nieces. Also, home food and puchkas! :D
✍️
Some lovely lines by Cheryl Strayed before you take a walk through the newsletter:
“It was my life – like all lives, mysterious and irrevocable and sacred.
So very close, so very present, so very belonging to me.
How wild it was, to let it be.”
-Cheryl Strayed, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail
Woo! I made a t-shirt collection 🙋🏻♀️
Yoooo! My t-shirt collection Fantasia just dropped in collaboration with Paas Collective. Just wanted to share the good news, and let y’all know the special discount code for my Alipore Post fam: ALIPORE20 to use the code at checkout.
Coffee x Lovers Poems
I’ve been smiling to myself over the ritual of coffee making, of choosing a specific coffee bean or brew technique to complement the mood you’re in, the act of picking different mugs on different mornings, the who’s-going-to-brew-it-today discussion in bed.
I couldn’t help but go into a rabbit hole looking for poems on coffee and lovers. Hope you enjoy the collection I’ve brewed for you today:
Rising before the sun
I leave the bed softly,
my beshert unstirred,
then tread across our slate-blue
Spanish floor, its breathe
unseen in the dark.
Every day yields thin sheets of
happiness, to be separated,
and held lightly by their bequests.
And the hour before dawn is
a silk jacket, if you chose to
extend your arms.
I make the coffee, pouring
hot water over grounds dark
as burnt oak. It is a slow dance
in the unlight, requiring
patience and steady hands,
as dawn tries to climb into
our eastern kitchen window.
The coffee rested, I
pour a cup and return
to bed, pillows propped up
against our white-worn
headboard.
My wife shifts—her right leg
now sleeps against mine, as
I sit, drinking black coffee,
in the almost morning.Remnants In the Kitchen After You Leave for Work by Roy Beckemeyer
A perfect circle of milk
that glistens white
and translucent
on the table – a memento,
or perhaps an echo
of your porcelain cereal bowl.
The melange
of coffee and dark toast
aromas, drifting
across the slanting
morning sunlight,
sending me
searching the shelves
for ambergris or musk
to fix the base note
of our morning.
The splash of sun
that gilds the edges
of the morning paper,
burnishing yesterday’s news
into a rare folio edition
of an ordinary day.The Road by Raymond Carver
What a rough night! It’s either no dreams at all,
or else a dream that may or may not be
a dream portending loss. Last night I was dropped off
without a word on a country road.
A house back in the hills showed a light
no bigger than a star.
But I was afraid to go there, and kept walking.
Then to wake up to rain striking the glass.
Flowers in a vase near the window.
The smell of coffee, and you touching your hair
with a gesture like someone who has been gone for years.
But there’s a piece of bread under the table
near your feet. And a line of ants
moving back and forth from a crack in the floor.
You’ve stopped smiling.
Do me a favor this morning. Draw the curtain and come back to bed.
Forget the coffee. We’ll pretend
we’re in a foreign country. And in love.Darling Coffee by Meena Alexander
The periodic pleasure
of small happenings
is upon us—
behind the stalls
at the farmer’s market
snow glinting in heaps,
a cardinal its chest
puffed out, bloodshod
above the piles of awnings,
passion’s proclivities;
you picking up a sweet potato
turning to me ‘This too?’—
query of tenderness
under the blown red wing.
Remember the brazen world?
Let’s find a room
with a window onto elms
strung with sunlight,
a cafe with polished cups,
darling coffee they call it,
may our bed be stoked
with fresh cut rosemary
and glinting thyme,
all herbs in due season
tucked under wild sheets:
fit for the conjugation of joy.
May ‘24 Playlist
The May playlist is now live. Shoo!
Also, special mention to Abhay Deol for the Take It Off track. Mm.😏
Links of the Week
Blessings by Andrew Hinton, Owen Ó Súilleabháin, and David Whyte (Emergence Magazine)
Trying the Ted Kooser Writing Routine (Poetry is Pretentious)
An artist’s understanding of identity and gendered spaces | Devi Seetharam (TEDxKCMT)
The Peculiar Manicule’s Cabinet of Paper Curiosities and Mod Miscellanea (DELISH!)
25 Journal Prompts for When You’re Anxious AF (Wondermind)
This emoji ikebana tool by Sonny Yan made my day! (found on the Naive Weekly newsletter, which I adore)
A parting reminder
Stay tender and don’t lose your head in this heat.
Wishing you shade and hydration,
Rohini
Thank you Rohini, for this issue. I find mornings special too - like a blank page, full of promise, asking to be written on. I like to hold on to that feeling as I sit down with my coffee in the quiet, before the day begins. Out of curiosity, which are these local brands you speak of? - Kavita