Genesis: A Post-Apocalyptic Version

I decided my Immortal Coffee novels needed a dogmatic narrative that served as a quasi-scientific creation story to tell their kids in the aftermath of the apocalypse. It had to record knowledge that would be have largely been lost while interpreting it with the values of the culture that survived. 

Usually I just keep things like this in my back story notes, but a lot of people contributed its development and I'd love to hear any feedback or reflections.

Before the beginning, there was nothing. Space and time lacked dimension. Consequently, there was no matter and that mattered to no one, because there was no one there to observe it.

And the nothing was the great mystery, which in its mystery divided into the animate and inanimate, that which had the power to observe itself and the part of itself that was to be observed. And it was aware of itself as something that had caused itself to come into being. And it knew causality. It knew time.

There was now a before and after within its observation of itself. And in the process of observing these new elements, it drew in what was observed and released what was doing the observing into that which was being observed. And it knew this relationship to itself as motion. And it knew space through this motion.

And the new motions gathered energy, which increased through space and time. And the great mystery was repelled and attracted to what it knew as that which was moving and that which was not moving. And it knew matter and it had mass.

And the separate parts of the great mystery continued to factor into more parts. Though knowing before and after, the great mystery also knew them as having been one whole. With each division it observed the process of separation and previous combination in its memory, an observation of before. And it recognized the parts did not equal more or less than before. And they usually took the shortest distance in space moving away from each other. 

But, the great mystery was attracted to the memory of its original form and repelled by the constant motion of its own parts. And the repulsion became a will and the will was a force of fear. The observer focused its will on the before and the parts of the great mystery that were matter pulled back together. And it exploded. And it knew gravity and emotion.

And with its new will, the great mystery was immediately attracted itself. It designated itself divine and all other things profane. And observing inward, it experienced fear at that which was not divine. And the will of the great mystery in its great fear exploded. And the new parts of the observer began to observe independently as the motion of the energy separated them and the new gravity and emotions of the new wills drew them together in love until tiny bits of observation and matter reformed as consciousnesses. And there was life.

And the new forms of life began observe their environment, to unitize and name the plethora of parts that had once been the great mystery, in processes called language and math. Matter flowed through the consciousnesses of life and those consciousnesses were drawn together and pushed apart, separately and infinitely through space time, developing incredible complexities. But, no consciousness could observe the whole, being only parts of the whole. But, they were attracted to other parts and with their will they began to selectively reproduce. 

And the parts that were life began to perceive themselves and were repulsed by their separation from the whole. And they expanded their observation into space or time and their own nature, attracted to the nature of the whole that surrounded them. But, as they observed more and more of the whole their own consciousness lost cohesion. And through a process of symbolic representation, the powerful observers began to simplify the impossible awareness of the whole of the great mystery. They made themselves stronger with increasingly complex symbols in art, math and language. And among these life forms were humans.

And so it was natural for humans to be attracted and repulsed by the symbols of the other humans as they resembled the whole of the great mystery that was both attracted and repulsed by itself and the process that brought it all into being. And it was natural to for humans to turn their symbolic representations on all the mysteries they could observe in their environment and within themselves. And the humans knew the philosophies, the arts and the sciences. 

And the moderns made the technologies to control their environment and each other out of fear and attraction to the symbols. And with the technologies observed the nature of the universe farther and farther until humanity itself developed a collective consciousness called history, and then they lost cohesion and exploded, which was known as the apocalypse.

What remained of the moderns drew together in self preservation with an awareness of the rudimentary principles of universal pulsation. And never again would they tempt the forces of nature by thinking too deeply about anything.

What Coffee Means to Me

The first piece of writing I had published was an Ode to Nescafe inspired by the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda and the hours I spent sipping Nescafe from demitasse cups late at night with my friends in Santiago.

I admit my obsession and I aim to exceed at it, which has been greatly aided by friends both online and off. It's a source of humor, comfort and absurdity and the central focus of my book series, Immortal Coffee.

Coffee is more than a drink to me.

The moment of the day that lasts, coffee represents everything quiet and peaceful. Drinking it, I am soothed by the memories of people who have mattered to me. All our laughter is felt as present in that moment.

My obsession with coffee begin very early on.

My mother married a tyrant when I was about four years old. Also a coffee drinker. He wanted to rear his step-children like he trained his dogs. But, fear and food do not inspire canine-style loyalty in small human children. As his bitterness about that grew, I started running away. Over and over.

To me, his coffee was a sort of symbol of power and self-determination. He could have it. I could not touch it. I wanted it.

At thirteen, I started buying and drinking coffee from the supermarket by my high school on the Oregon coast. Empowering. It tasted like freedom. I still associate the salty sea air, warm coffee and the sound of rain with hope.

I started university young and had my son. He called his mother's coffee, chompy, and seemed to understand its primary role in my life almost at birth. I treasure a video of him at two years old stealing my coffee, running around the full length of my aunt's house and giggling like a maniac as I chased him. When his father died in an accident, I measured time between the pain in moments of relief that I experienced when having my morning coffee. At that point, it became routine.

I calculated, before graduating from university, that I had spent at least ten thousand dollars on coffee from a small drive thru in the parking lot by my house. The baristas accommodated me by making an 8 oz soy mocha iced with only a drop of chocolate and two beans. They had my coffee ready as soon as they saw my car.

Traveling

But, I had to leave the coffee shops of Oregon behind to travel and the habit that had comforted me, because a routine that shackled me to my hometown. I struggled. Cried. Embarrassed by it, but too desperate to change. On a short trip to Virginia, I begged shops to make my coffee with soy milk that I purchased and brought to them. It was a crippling addiction to the routine. Not the caffiene.

Eventually, I accepted I had to change. I moved to South American and learned to drink instant. Liberated, I fell in love with the small cups and when out around town, the cafe cortados. Most of all, I loved the conversations with my new friends. And my students at the university, I sent to purchase coffee for me during class. I held office hours at the Starbucks across the street. If I could survive on instant, I could travel anywhere.

On my return to Oregon, my regular coffee shop had trained its newest barista to make my drink during my absence. With the two beans. After ten years of arriving ten minutes after I woke up, they had every confidence I would return and make my daily appearances again. Within a year, I was gone again and learning to drink long blacks in New Zealand.

Books

I suppose it was inevitable that I brought the coffee drinking theme into my writing, because it embodies everything I want to inspire. I want my work to drag people through adversity, but to never lose sight of the smallest hopes that can be grown and developed into strengths that later carry us toward the dreams we choose to pursue when conducted with moderation.

While working in libraries, I've had many people come and tell me their dark experiences. The library  provides a safe hiding place to go when life gets rough. Books can mean everything to readers. The connection to people we may never meet is almost otherworldly as if by sharing our perceptions, our experience and our imagination, we transfer our strength and fortitude.

I have certainly experienced that from great authors.

We often say we love books, but that is utterly inaccurate. Some books are dumb or boring or offensive. There are books that cannot be loved. It's what is in the books that we love. And once, having fallen in love with the form of the book, we can still trace the origin of that affection to the content.

Coffee is the same. A symbol of strength and hope and an addictive behavior I overcame, coffee is just a symbol.

The smell and the beautiful warm brown liquid represents my endless faith that serenity is always within reach.

Happy National Coffee Day!

Why I Love My Misogynistic Dad

My father wrote something once. And he had me read it.

I could have gone without that experience. It was supposed to be about sailing, but he started it out with a scene where you could have replaced the woman with a coffee pot and lost nothing. She was just a mute receptacle.

Of course, that's not why I'm calling him a misogynist. I have a lifetime of observations to build that conclusion on.

For example...

My father has often enjoyed silencing his wife by raising a stern hand whenever she attempts to express opinions. She dutifully obeys. And he has explained to me many times women's role in this man's world. Woman are to shut up and serve men as his wife would demonstrate.

The women in my Feminist Philosophy course at university would have had me force him to change. I was supposed to put them first and never turn a blind eye to the oppressive acts of the more privileged gender even if it meant I had to distance myself from my own father. At the time, I knew they had it all wrong, but it wasn't until after many years of reflection I could explain why.

My dad started his life speaking an indigenous language, had a turbulent childhood with common absences of his mother and was in rehab when he should have been in high school. He was discharged from the Navy before he was eighteen. He married a white college student while he was bumming around in another state, but she left with his two young children when all he had done was bring a girlfriend from another reservation up to teach her how to act like a proper woman. His words not mine.

I used to argue with him for hours. He had no natural gift for logic and his only authority on every subject was his own opinion, but he could weave a conversation into a big basket of irritating crazy no matter how diligently I worked to untangle it.

And while he might sound like a nightmare, I have many reasons to love and respect the man. All of them would be his actions. Certainly, not what he said.

Whenever I needed someone to listen, he was there. If he had something to give, it was mine. If I was hurt, it was his pain, too. Every few months since I was quite young, he'd post twelve page letters to me explaining his life and why he wasn't there. But, when I was old enough to visit him, he never once prioritized anything else.

One time during college, I remember describing to him how frustrated I was with my classmates and how I was going to go and set the record straight on a very minute aspect of some theory that he didn't understand, but I assured him they all had all wrong. My dad said, "So, my daughter is a warrior. I always wanted a son." His parental pride was nearly as grand as his arrogance in that moment.

Gender is not viewed as a choice in Western thought, but my father wasn't bothered with how other people saw gender. In his mind, the roles were significantly more rigid, but there was no reason you couldn't pick whatever side suited you best.

He saw the woman as controller of the kitchen, the heart of the home. His wife would never allow him near it. Offering to do the dishes after a meal was an offense. You were infringing upon her responsibility and her authority over the home and its management. We would never think to approach an architect or a lawyer and offer to do their job. And running the home, for them, was the same. Too important.

My father believed he had to keep his wife happy if he wanted to stay in the home. What he earned, he surrendered, because she was the primary provider and the center of his little world.

But, my father was an often broken man.

His second wife put up with his insecurity and variability for thirty years before leaving to remarry her first husband and care for him while he was dying of cancer. A year and many girlfriends later, my father asked if he should go back to her and when they reunited, there was no loss of love between them.

They resumed their life and their crafts. She worked with seed beads and he worked with leather and wood to make things that had significance for themselves, for others and for sale. They lacked the education and income my mother and step-father enjoyed, but they were much happier just being together. He kept a traditional calendar that marked the years with either lines or pictures of significant events. I remember the little indian woman with the squiggly line that meant she was gone and the same squiggly line with the little indian woman that meant she was back.

Later on in my life, when I was getting married, my dad invited my now ex-husband to view his gun collection. He was so happy you would have thought Custer had come back to life and could be killed again. And he resumed his lectures on being a proper woman as if I had changed sides on the war between the sexes without missing a beat.

I've never blamed my mother for leaving him.

All her relationships had a clear winner and loser or they ended. Rules were to appear fair and be obeyed. People did not move within spheres of personality authority. The person with more status was the obvious authority wherever they went. In the kitchen. Outside. It was all the same.

Housework was to be delegated from the people who were more important to the people who were less important. The work of the home was not important. In fact, it is easy to say that mother and stepfather coveted the same role as undisputed leader of the family. They divided housework up as chores for children and spent their free time fighting each other on every major decision.

Is it so strange that I should prefer the peace and warmth of a home where the responsibilities of cleaning and cooking are guarded privileges? I still remember how honored I felt when I was asked to help prepare food in my stepmother's kitchen.

Although it is hard to explain away how my father spoke about women, the words he used were perhaps not what mattered most. In those times my dad silenced his wife by raising his hand, he was looking away from her amused smirk. For them, it was a choice to be together and an endless game of balancing power between them. If she tired of his demonstration, she spoke when and as she wanted whether or not he raised his hand. And he accepted that quietly without objection.

I don't know if its fair to call my father a misogynist or not. He was full of pretense while secretly committed to balancing power in his calm, affectionate relationship with his second wife.

Sometimes his actions spoke louder than his words.

And other times, I wish they hadn't hurt so much.