This was what she loved most about a brand new day. The smell of fresh coffee.
Every morning, she would climb off her bed and walk with decisive long strides to her Coffeemaker. First, she would, with sarcastic attentiveness, fill out her mug with the dark liquid. She enjoyed pouring her coffee in that manner because she was often referred to as a scatter-brain. Nothing ever sustained her attention over a period of time. An enigmatic restlessness, she would often quip about herself.
Second, she would lift the mug of the hot, thick liquid to her nose and allow the fresh aroma waft through her nostrils and settle on her olfactory lobes. Then, she would take a long sip of the brew, letting the caffeine sate her senses.
This was her every morning ritual. Her romance with her coffee. As usual, she would pour herself another mug. All this she did while standing in that spot of the kitchen she had come to get accustomed to. It was a little space between the shelf where her Coffeemaker sat and the side of her refrigerator. She just loved to stand, resting her back against the side of the refrigerator, the gentle humming vibrations massaging her back.
She would then drop the used mug in the sink. The cleaning lady would wash the mug, that she knew and also, clear out her room and fold or hang, whichever the case may be, every cloth she must have strewn around. The cleaning lady was a nice, smiling woman who never said much. She had at one time left her used plates in the sink (she was never a kitchen person) and the woman would always wash them. Guilt, however, settled on her like a night cloud and so, she resorted to disposable everything! Plates, cups and cutlery. Life was that simple: use and dispose!
Her bath often took longer than ten minutes because she often times forgot whatever it was she was doing in the bathroom. Her brain rummaged with thoughts and solutions. How to approach this? How to settle that? The best plausible way to synchronize? Then, like a jolt of lightning, her mind would snap back to the present reality and she would continue with her bath.
Dressing up was an even more arduous task, with less co-ordination. Flinging clothes around her room, never deciding which was best. She actually never easily decided on anything, except for the best approach to take on with her cases, of course. She often called it a ‘knack’ which just made her know the right step, the right approach to take. Like Olivia Pope in the popular series, ‘Scandal’ would call hers ‘gut-feeling’, she called hers ‘her knack’.
Make-up applied in haste, hair pulled back in her signature ponytail, laptop bag and handbag in hand, her day was set to take-off. But first, she had to pour her coffee into her travel mug and take a dash out of the flat, often always running back to lock her door.
This was her usual routine. The usual routine of the scatter-brained Lagos female lawyer.
(C)2015
musingsofours 