An Ode to Coffee on the Road
We almost didn’t stop for the takeaway coffee. Almost. We were running late. And the baby who hates the car was, well, hating the car. And the kid who is always starving was, well, starving.
It doesn’t make sense to stop, we reasoned, wrestling with the irrational temptation. There would be coffee at the house we were going to stay in and we were about to have two whole weeks together during which there would be ample time to stop for coffee. Good coffee, even. Enjoyed over actual tables and unrushed conversation. Not petrol station coffee, chugged over gravelly roads, hands cupped under our chins as bibs, and overpacked suitcases fashioned as footrests.
“Buuuut,” I paused, making sure I had my husband’s attention before making my final case, “If we’re going to be five minutes late then what difference does it make to be ten minutes late?” A raised eyebrow from Paddy told me that such logic hadn’t exactly helped me in life thus far.
But still, we stopped.
We slickly pulled in at the mediocre Applegreen, just off the M2 motorway heading North out of Belfast, both of us in silent agreement that we were never really going to drive past it, anyway. We only find ourselves on this road when we are visiting my family or taking a trip to the Coast, and it seems the luxury of a road trip coffee has a certain hold over us.
I waited patiently with the boys while Paddy did the needful. When he returned to the car with a cup in each hand, we clarified which Americano belonged to me, the recipient of slightly more milk, and we took our first sips. Not bad, not bad we agreed.
But reader, I need you to know it was better than not bad.
Cradling this ordinary drink between my two sticky hands, like a budget adult version of a genie lamp, I thought of the same journey we made in the midst of lockdown and perinatal depression. And the same holiday we took this time last year in the midst of a brutal step-parent adoption with endless social worker and solicitor visits. I was struck by every cup that came before this.
I remembered the joy of getting away from it all. At the time, the relief was so tangible I could almost wrap it around me like a blanket.
I thought of the many hidden, repressed worries I chose to divulge to Paddy, or silently to God along this stretch of motorway. The deep verbal processing that only happens when you have nowhere else to be but here. In this seat. Holding this takeaway cup.
Suddenly, I knew why I needed this particular beverage so badly, and it wasn’t because of tiredness or tradition or an acquired taste for bitter cardboard. No, it was the comforting taste of freedom and anticipation I unknowingly longed for. The reprieve of leaving daily life behind and the hope of rest and play ahead.
With that first sip, I was transported back to every pause taken at this petrol station. Every anxiety I ever attempted to leave behind, every reality I sought a break from, every piece of healing found at the other end of the motorway. On every journey, be it for a day trip or a fortnight, it was at this point on the road that I began to breathe. A slow exhale. The kind that rose from deep in my bones.
I’m not going to tell you I got emotional over a cup of car coffee, but I will tell you I envied my husband sitting innocently in the seat next to me, minding his own business, drinking his ordinary cup of coffee and thinking about nothing other than how it was surprisingly not bad and how we were going to be ten minutes late.
Why must I always feel all the feelings?
This journey was no different in that there were burdens I hoped to leave behind at home, back in the grind of daily life with the excessive dishes and my addiction to bleach. And of course, there were the ones I knew would be coming with us. But I couldn’t recall every welcomed cup of car coffee without taking note of how God has been doing His thing all along. The daily trials He has brought us through, too ordinary to be noticed at the time.
So, maybe these flimsy takeaway cups hold more than just coffee. Maybe, these ordinary cups of coffee (on the road) are a tangible reminder of God’s ordinary faithfulness (on the road of life).
Not bad, indeed.