Afternoon Coffee
Sunday, September 14th, 2008

Praise be for Sunday afternoon solitude, the animals wrapped in their own bodies on cushions around the room, and the warm cup of steaming hot coffee filling the house with smell. Praise the remote control pointed at a television switched off earlier in the day on which the day’s big football game never played out. Praise the sounds of neighborhood lawnmowers whirring to life seconds after the quarterback throws an incompletion that puts a merciful end to the home team’s ugly drubbing in a familiar stadium – three hours wasted rooting for the losers and now they’re out trudging through the lawns wet from a week’s worth of rain.

These men, as evidenced by their bellies, are given to drinking beer on game day. I doubt that they realize the quiet moments of relaxation they are missing out on witht the televison going all day or some loud activity to sidetrack the. But their wives know and they must recognize it the same way I do when all that is supposed to be done on Sunday, as usual, is either accomplished or postponed to the next weekend prior to 4 p.m.

Most of the houses on the outside appear to be quiet. Through the thin opening in the screen door, I can hear heavy breathing dogs in the backyard, chasing each other from fence to fence, around the trees and small piles of mulch. When the dogs stop to take a drink from an old aluminum water bowl, the sun breaks through, the faces of houses seem to smile as the paint on them brightens. All of outdoors except for the locusts is dead silent as everyone looks up to see the great light sourse that has wrapped itself in clouds the deepest gray it was though the sun and sky were attending a funeral with big, wet downpours of fat tears. I am gradually tiring, just sitting here and enjoying the quiet while the children sleep.

Nearly every weekend, about this time in the afternoon, I start to think about heating what’s left of the morning coffee, the last murky cup or two that’s been sitting in the pot since the warmer clicked off six or maybe eight hours ago. This is the last part of the pot that my wife thoughtlessly pours down the drain if she chooses to drink coffee so late in the day. For those of us new the coffee realm, pouring out so much of the pot seems like a total waste. My wife claims drinking a pot several hours old is wrong and that the taste is stale. But as a novice, I taste no difference. I drink not for taste, but for the false energy.

Now one of the cats has decided to lay on my lap where I balance the cup as I write. Each time the dog barks, he lifts his head in fear, and then settles back in to his purring. I am envious of his ability to sleep in the afternoon, to carelessly burn the day while his master is hard at work, attempting to perfect a craft that can’t be perfected. Constant writing fueled bu coffee and false passion, at least for today, rates far below an afternoon nap. The day seems quieter now as I start to dream about sleep. The sun goes back to its favorite resting place of late behind the clouds, and the day grays up again. In the winter, the melancholy of a day like this together with a drafty house are plenty enough to send me to a heated bed for sleep. Today, though, there is jusy enough summer left and black coffee to keep me gaining ground on a decent first novel.

Tags: Sunday