My body is finding routine again and the joy of routine requires ritual.
The new copywriting job in the coffee industry, while bringing this particular obsession to new heights, has brought a soothing familiarity to my everyday existence. I like to think I know a good coffee from one that tastes like burnt dirt, but I realised when I started this job that in the grand scheme of things I know absolutely nothing, but that’s quite exciting.
For your brain to make a habit it requires a sequence of events, and my pour over coffee habit now has fun new steps for my brain to plug into its sequence. I’m probably one of the least left-brained people there is, but maybe that’s why it brings such a sense of balance.
I have always been an anxious person. It is what it is. I think I was born this way and it’s high time I accepted it. I waver between degrees of acceptance and sometimes from sheer defiance I convince myself I function very well socially, actually, although in these moments people probably think I’m a little manic. At other times I find it absolutely debilitating and I make a sweaty and tongue-tied first impression I regret for the rest of my life.
And new jobs are all about first impressions, so I’m clinging onto all the grounding activities I can.
I make pour over coffee in a Hario V60 and I learned from an expert colleague that after rinsing the filter, you have to pull it out of the cone and plop it back in again. He used an analogy that whenever you went camping as a kid you were told to separate the outer layer of your tent from the inner layer, otherwise it lets water through. And my brain conjured up images of my childhood camping with my Guide group and started brimming with nostalgia, which my brain eats ravenously and which this newsletter is really all about, so I thought it was the most wonderful analogy he could have used. And I think about it every time I pick out the filter and plop it back in so that it just barely touches the cone.
And then I put the coffee grounds in and I put in just enough water to cover the beans and I let them ‘bloom’ for about 30 seconds, sometimes a little more. I don’t time it exactly because that would drive me insane. And then I slowly pour the water into the cone in an anti-clockwise direction (for some reason this is important) and I keep going until the cone is full. It drips into glass decanter and when the cone is almost empty of water I fill it again to make sure there’s enough coffee for Dan too.
And it makes me feel calm first thing in the morning even though I’d really rather go back to bed some days. I’m like, “yeah, I’m glad I got out of bed to smell and taste this coffee.” And the extra steps add a little extra something to the moment I take the first sip.
But I digress. Another ritual from this week is not really a ritual but more one activity I did that I hope to develop into a weekly ritual, which is lane swimming. In the slow lane.
When I was a kid I used to go swimming every Monday with my grandad after school and after every swim session I was allowed a bag of crisps from the dispenser. I tended to go for something repellant to the rest of my family, like Wotsits or Monster Munch. Maybe so that I could eat it all because I was a chubby kid.
I counted lengths and every week I would try to get more lengths and compare them with my grandad and my brother. My grandad taught me how to swim - or, in his words, “be a competent swimmer”.
Dan and I walked 5 minutes from our new flat to the leisure centre and the moment the smell of chlorine hit my nose I felt soothed. Even though the changing room was kind of gross, but that was always a feature of my childhood too. I’ll take sliders next time.
I didn’t count lengths but I did keep going for 45 minutes which was the longest I’ve swam non stop since I don’t even remember when. It’s not much, but it’s something I want to keep going with.
Since I left the dance troupe, my cardio fitness has plummeted and although I’m a lot happier, I’m a little softer. So hopefully this will redress the balance and contribute to the structure I crave in my life.
And I can’t even write in there. They don’t give you waterproof pens and pads in there, unbelievably, so I can’t relentlessly allow my thoughts to escape. I can let them swish around in my brain for a while with the sound of my hands moving the water in front of me. Like the coffee in the poncey decanter, they can aerate.
That’s all.
Forever,
💌
Lau.