a city reader

I DRANK GREEN TEA THIS MORNING. I had two cups. My grandmother who lived with us in her late years would sometimes say ‘just a cup of hot water’ when my mother would ask what she’d like after dinner. My two green teas this morning didn’t have much more kick than that. 

I want to like green tea. I want it to be what I have instead of coffee. When I’d go to Joe Jr’s diner here, that’s what they’d bring me. I always got green tea there. So too at my Sunday breakfast place Bluebell. I was a tea guy in both places. I liked the idea of tea. It seemed clean, healthy. I didn’t think of it as British or Irish. I thought of it as Asian I guess. It seemed enlightened. I tried to be all in. I even looked at Youtube videos about tea to deepen my resolve. I bought boxes of tea. 

Coffee my mother oohed and aahed about too much when she’d take her first sip at the breakfast table. I could talk to Dr. Freud about that. 

I didn’t drink coffee until after college and then I didn’t crave it or need it to start my day like some guys. I certainly never oohed. 

But with my cigarette years behind me and my drinking days behind me too, coffee has become a friendly dark echo of those days and it gives me a kick I seem to need. I have a cup right next to me now.