Coffee & Contemplation…
Boy it sure was a tight Christmas
And I was thinking of the resilience of my family:
Our love for each other
and my Mother’s light
and I was stress eating pickles out of the fridge like one does
and I had a crazy idea….
What if those pickle jars were candles…and they smelled like home?
Whether crusted on a lamb or delicately crumbed into a shortbread, rosemary is one of the main smells of our home, carrying long, laughing memories with a good, green garden.
After all, rosemary’s for remembrance.
As a child, my happiest memories swirled with the scents of rosemary, sage, and belly laughs from the kitchen around the Holidays. And I wanted to share that joy with the dear ones in my life.
It was 2021 and I was broker than a joker in a smoker. At the end of the summer, I’d left a soul-sucking nonprofit job that had left me mentally and physically drained. My job search had become the butt of half of my stand up jokes. Or would have been a butt if I’d been doing stand up.
A pandemic and my own confidence had put me at a bit of a crossroads mentally, emotionally and financially.
Time to think like my mom and grans and aunties -how could we make holiday magic outta a little bit of nothing?
Well, to start, you don’t throw out a good jar, right?
So I bought some cheap wax from Michaels, 2 bottles of essential oils: rosemary & a frankincense & myrrh blend from the health food store. That OG blend smelled like holiday magic when it burned and the response from loved ones was overwhelming.
Why do the best hugs always come with homemade things?
Now my curiosity was peaked. What other memories could be triggered by this badass, time-traveling sense?
And six months, many more question, several failures and triumphs later, here we are….
Actually, credit to my hottie mcdottie husband John who cracked this particular combo: why not put coffee and rosemary together?
The Nose Knows and she knew it the moment we stirred this brew: this was how we wanted to spend our mornings.
With a good cup of inspiration at your side.
This smell takes me right back to 1994 - sleeping at my Grandma’s house.
Blearily waking up to my Grandma Martha puttering around 5 am to sit on her deck with a cup of coffee to greet the sun. I guess she would have been one of my earliest examples of watching someone practice a bit of ritual and self care with their morning routine.
And she was a very smart lady.
I was far too young to appreciate it in 1994 , but now - we gets it Grandma.
It’s important to greet the day. Whatever ways you are able to greet the sun, I hope you have a moment to cherish something for yourself.
Sending you a little Coffee & Contemplation help you jumpstart your day and breathe in some calm connection this morning.
