Mid-morning strikes me as an unusual time to write about sleep. I eat a snack-sized Zone bar, only 80 calories, innoculation against the desire for sleep that seems to hit right about now, after my coffee wears off.
I was thinking about Aunt Helen yesterday and how she drank a pot of coffee a day. We lived in different states, our family in New Mexico, Aunt Helen and Uncle Nemey in California. Whenever Mom mentioned talking to Helen on the phone, I pictured her round fig-like body seated at her formica table, a small TV on top the washer, and Helen drinking cup after cup of coffee.
I’ve started to crave cup after cup of coffee with heated milk. I could drink three or four cups, in fact, each morning. Even some afternoons I crave the smell of coffee and the feel of the smooth ceramic cup warm in my hands.
I think of the question: If I were stuck on a deserted island and could have only one food, what would it be? Right now, this moment, it would be a cup of my heated milk and coffee, or maybe heated milk and black tea chai. But forever, or for as long as the mind can see, my one food would be coffee and not chai, the chai spices too intense and the chai flavor too sweet.
I know it’s all silly, this deserted-island talk, as if there were a Starbucks on the island, as if coffee or chai were foodstuff, as if my body could survive on coffee. I’d get jittery and skinny and I’d die of starvation, although in my mind I figure there might be coconuts or mango, fish to spear with sticks, but wouldn’t I want rice as my one food?
Why is it that in my head I think of foods that give me water instead of mass? Foods like bananas and watermelon, those I could live on into perpetuity. I’d ask, Wait, can’t I also have a salty food, like popcorn, to counter the sweet? It must be the coffee that makes me have these food cravings, or the lack of oxygen, as I just now realize I’m forgetting to breathe as I write.
My sleep has been deep. I almost remember dreams, one where I’m in a box, and maybe it’s a box train on its way somewhere in the dark. Then the box becomes a fourth-floor apartment where Jim and I live, and instead of moonlight shining in the window there is light from the bar at street level. I walk to the window and see people streaming in and out of the bar, and I tell Jim, Oh no, the store next door closes at 10 but the bar will stay open ’til 5. Jim is talking to our two roommates, and I think, What a disaster to live next door to a bar.
I wonder now, sitting here, much more awake than when I started, why is it I sleep so soundly and soundlessly yet dream so noisily? Is it, as they say, a time to work out all one’s worries, and if so, what kind of thing is it that leaves me craving water and salt, coffee at all hours, and a desire to be left all alone in the dark quiet night?
-From topic post, Writing Topic – Counting Sheep
redravine.wordpress.com 
I’d like to practice sleeping! LOL.
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That makes two of us : – ).
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I would rather die with coffee than live with mango…and at least you could talk to your own reflection in the cup 😉
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Yeah, but then I realized coffee and milk are two different items, and I CAN’T drink coffee without milk, in which case I’d be screwed if it’s really only ONE food.
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Living in the tropics now, I have found that mango is the most disgusting fruit. I find it stringy and vial! I am the only one with that opinion here. Everyone thinks I am nuts when I say I hate mangos. Coffee on the other hand…(Homer Simpson drool here).
I drink at least 4 maybe 6 cups a day here. Tasty stuff. Not Starbuck-sized cups but regular Venezuelan-size (large) cups.
A former teacher here went to Yemen last year to work on work-related business. He brought back some Yemen coffee. UN-F’n-BELIEVABLE! I have become a big fan of good Venezuelan beans but this Yemen coffee is unreal! I still have a small amount in the freezer.
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[…] -From topic post, Writing Topic – Counting Sheep […]
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You’re one of those fortunate people who can drink a cup of coffee and nod straight off to sleep. Lots of folks would be jealous of your post-caffeine naps.
Whenever I read or hear someone’s dream my immediate reaction is to think of similar dreams I’ve had, and of course I’ve had several train dreams. Must be a universal theme in the post-industrialized world.
In my most recent train dream, I’m in a box car with no roof – I can see the night sky, and like your dream, I end up somewhere, a place like a hotel in a large city. I preferred the train ride.
Thanks for sharing your dream and your passion for coffee.
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Do your train dreams often end up being the type where you can’t get somewhere? My vehicle/travel dreams seem to have become the new anxiety dream for me.
MM — coffee from Yemen? Wow. I’ll have to go to Whiting Coffee to see if they carry any. They’re the best coffee roasters in Albuquerque.
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I had a great aunt who could drink coffee at night, just before going to bed, and claimed it helped her sleep.
That still amazes me. She lived almost her whole life in the same farmhouse; I think maybe the different pace of our days had something to do with it.
I envy you your deep sleep. I look forward to getting back into a better sleep rhythm, and remembering my dreams, which now flit through my light, interrupted sleep like startled pigeons in the rafters of a deserted building, all buffeted air and sudden droppings.
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I’m actually pretty careful about not drinking coffee at night (I’ll get decaf at a restaurant, for example), but yeah, I don’t notice that coffee taken after a certain hour really keeps me awake. My mom — she won’t drink coffee after 8a. But she has a terrible time sleeping. Five hours a night, or six, is a huge feat for her. I hope I have the sleeping habits of my dad when I’m old — he’s a good sleeper ; – ).
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I donno but this made me kinda hungry.
I loved your description of Aunt Helen, “her round fig-like body seated at her formica table,”
Without any other descriptors it gave me a very vivid picture of the person in question.
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Yes, she was rotund. All torso and butt — no legs or neck (or at least, not much as compared to the rest of her).
Are you hungry for salt or sweet? I’m craving popcorn right now myself.
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Sweet now.
Something with the words ‘triple chocolate’ in it, ideally.
Do you get the movie popcorn? One of the two combinations that makes me feel the worst is movie popcorn and soda, but I can’t resist. I guess they put coconut oil in the theater butter to make it that much worse for you. But it’s yummy.
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Absolutely I get the movie popcorn. I often order the refillable bucket, although I never even eat 1/3 of it (I still refill to the top and then bring the bucket home for the turkeys ; – ).
I don’t like the artifical butter, though. It coats my intestines. Hmmm…coconut oil? Like eating Sol de Solei, or whatever that suntanning oil is called.
Mmmm, I’m craving a mint Dilly Bar.
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Ha! Even before I read these last few comments, your writing had made me crave something salty — popcorn specifically. What interesting dreams you seem to have!
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