The Bloom — simple things

We drink the sweet essence of the sacred bean in every season and for a wealth of reasons. It is solace and sustenance, the force that renews and reinvigorates both body and mind to bring focus to our days and the moments within them. In this, there is much power and possibility, and when we take that first sip, we are inviting this energy into our lives to work its magic. Yet for all of its many capacities to illuminate, we rarely tap into what is at once coffee’s most obvious and most overlooked potential. We don’t really consider it...

I seek an orderly life. It’s A to B to C in order to get to D for me. That’s how I roll. But what happens when Z pops up uninvited along the way? The other day I had it all mapped out. There was a route. There were objectives. There was a schedule, a destination, and a list of things to get done. Then Z appeared. A flyer at the gym for a flea market, which normally I am a sucker for but not on a day when I’ve got a serious agenda. I dutifully ignore Z. Then again...

A year or so ago I had the official worst day ever. I overslept and left my wallet at home (no double latte for me). I missed my bus and the morning staff meeting, which earned me a special one-on-one with the boss, which I had right after I found out that the writing class I wanted to take had filled up before I’d signed up. Lunch ruined a new sweater with a stain I didn’t catch, and it was downhill from there. I was not slaying it. It was slaying me, and by the time it was over, I...

When I was a kid, my parents took me on a killer cross-country vacation, and it was one humungous major-league adventure. From Yellowstone to the Grand Canyon, the whole month was packed to the roof of Mom and Dad’s minivan with big days in even bigger places. I was about thinking about that trip yesterday because yesterday was quite possibly the most boring day in the entire history of the human race. Nothing happening was happening in my world, and everything I was doing had already been done to death. I wanted to be doing something huge—climbing a mountain, trekking...