Risser Kaffee Verein

During the pandemic and resulting lockdown/quarantine, I spent a lot of my time drinking coffee, reading, internet surfing, and relaxing on the outdoor patio at home. While I have always enjoyed that activity, this was different. It was more of an enveloping than fleeting experience and felt more like one with each passing day. At its peak, the ominous uncertainty of what the next day would bring lead to many abstract thought possibilities, most all disquieting to say the least. It was in that time, that I began to practice “being in the moment” instead of ruminating on the past/future.

Within those moments my “Coffee at Daybreak” routine began. Since most of my Social Media posts to that point involved being physically out and about somewhere, involved in an activity of interest to others, often visually stimulating and/or of a culinary nature, my Social Media posts ceased because of my new socially isolated and introverted life at home.

Soon thereafter, I began looking at what I appreciated in my new simple life. One morning on the patio, I realized how many people I knew who enjoyed their coffee in the morning and were socially isolated like me. Many of them were on Facebook. I did not know if they were online at the time, but one morning I posted a picture on Facebook of my raised morning coffee cup, saluting the moment, and asked others to join in with a picture of their coffee cup. I was surprised at the many pictures of various coffee cups and replies that came back. It was evident then, just how many of us were going through the same experience. It was a fun and shared experience while still a “distanced” one. I did it once and did not think it was worth repeating but that soon changed.

Since my work hours and Circadian rhythm had me up well before daybreak even on my days off, I began going out to the patio with my coffee before daybreak to watch the night turn into day. I enjoyed it and still do. One day, at the exact moment of daybreak, I again raised my coffee cup to the dawning light and took a picture of it that I posted on Facebook. I added a comment mentioning it was a coffee salute at daybreak in appreciation of a new day, being here now and present in the moment.

Since then, I would do a morning coffee salute now and then until it became something I did only weekly, on Saturday morning, to pause and truly “be in the moment, here and now”. I would share it with others and soon, some began to expect to see it. I see now that weekly post fosters a communal pause in the moment that others enjoy, regardless of what we have collectively and individually been going through, for better or worse, during the week between them. It is a pause I always look forward to and my wish is that others do as well.