Caffeinating Your Query

“You’re a coffee addict,” he said. I put down the latte and smiled at him. “How did it start?” I let out a shy laugh. I swiveled my chair facing him and we took a five with my journey of being a coffee addict. “I was in college and I needed something to keep me awake,” I said.

I had the privilege of pursuing my degree in the United States. In the land of opportunities I saw a door welcoming me to the world of caffeine wonders. Sipping a cup of latte is seen a lifestyle rather than a quotidian necessity in Malaysia. One cup is too fancy for a local who enjoys a mug of kopi at the mamak. “Why should I pay more? It is still coffee,” dad said. I was in my final semester at the University of Iowa and my courses compromised of mostly English studies. It was hard not to hold a cup of coffee while your instructor holds a cup in a hand and a marker pen in the other. “It’s like you wake up and you take a shower. It’s necessary,” I said trying to ease his puzzlement. It is essential to induce some caffeine in you to kick-start the day or your body will be at lethargy without it. My colleague was even more confused.

Caffeine increases attention and alertness as I Googled the dos and don’ts of caffeine. True. It decreases fatigue as it increases metabolic rate. Spot on. However, it creates anxiety and addiction, which explains my hyperactive reaction when I have too many for a day. I have managed to control my caffeine consumption to one cup a day. I first noticed my hands were shaky and I befriended the restroom too amiably when I consume two or three cups a day. To reduce the daily need however was unjustifiable when I was in the States. A dollar to a ringgit, a regular cup is equivalent to a mug at the mamak. We even get free flow of Starbucks at the library every exam week, no kidding. It was not an addiction but rather an essential.

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“Why not tea?” I was more Americanized in that manner. I stumbled upon articles that magnify the good of coffee, “it reduces the risk of cancer”. It was mostly cold in Iowa City and being born in the tropics, coffee is an instant heat because even a bubble jacket fails to give you enough warmth. “That seems legit,” he said. Coffee houses were an alternative to do homework when the library is too crowded. You’ll find people having rendezvous in between the MacBooks that project lecture notes. It is a refuge to charge your dying laptop as oppose to the coffee houses in Malaysia. It was to me, a place of comfort. Finding Starbucks at home is like finding the many coffee houses in the States – a familiar feeling. I was getting attached with that necessity it was challenging to talk myself out of the addiction when I returned home last year.

“You’re holding a cup!” I commented. My sister was never a fan.

“You’re in its territory, you’ll succumb,” I said.

“Yeah, it’s a mocha. Still some chocolate in it,” she said.

I liked her Instagram post recently at the first Starbucks store in Seattle.

It hurts my expenses but an addiction remains an addiction. Bags of green tea to detox the addiction and a hefty of willpower to ignore its need but I know well my body screams for it. It’s bad enough to be addicted but I refuse to call it a bad influence. It was a friend to me when I was uninspired and lonely with a blank page. “That’s some love for coffee,” he said. “You once tried to give up coffee and replaced caffeine with crying spontaneously,” item 41 from 50 Signs You’re a Coffee Addict by Thought Catalog. I couldn’t agree more.

Mother

I was 14 and my English teacher applauded my essay. “You should all have a read,” she said. I stood in front of the class holding an inscription of Mother. 10 years later, I write, if not daily every now and then to relive that day. If not for Mother, I may not have been of a perusal. Continuum is birthed today to encapsulate the yesteryears of blogging and to magnify the good that writing has had on me. Today is a beautiful excuse to celebrate a reader – my mother – who has never left a writer through her discovery of verbal marvels.

We were in the car last night and mom told me she read of mother’s day to soon be discontinued from celebration in Malaysia. We sneered. The amplified celebration was always on birthdays. My mom and her elder sister will go all length to commemorate the birth date of their children. None of us was left out. I doubt we each remember the gifts we received every year but I know the education was to understand that an act of giving is worth more than receiving. So are we soon discontinuing birthday celebrations? “Niat kita tu penting,” she said.

Mom teaches. She educates. She brings down the wall that pauses kids from jumping off cliffs. Some of us are afraid of the unknown without inquiring the known. “You should be thankful for the exposure that you have,” she said. On a recent day, she told her students to be ashamed because even her daughter who has no professional background in videography won third in a competition. She was proud. “That is why you and Alia are always pushed beyond your limits,” she reminded.

“They don’t have the privileges that you and your sister have,” she said. We’re all a student who teeters the grading seesaw once. We know how difficult a teacher can be. I had a lecturer in UiTM who only showed up 20% of his classes in one semester. Then I had a teaching assistant who graded Muslim students poorly. How many do we know truthfully teach for the sake of education? How many do we know inspire us to better ourselves and to give back in any way we could? “Syaza, the essay on your late grandmother was so tender I cried,” Rachel wrote to me. Mom was more than proud.

“You’re a good daughter I cannot deny that,” she paused.

“I am your mother and my job to remind you will not retire.”

Thank you mak. The many essays that I’ve written on mothers will never measure up to the time you spent carrying me in your womb, the time you sacrificed to provide me with a wealth of knowledge and the time you endlessly pray for my wellbeing. It may be today that we emphasize on celebrating our mothers but it may be today that God grants our prayers for His grace and blessings on them this life and hereafter.

A special wish to my mak lang, who is a mother more than an aunt to me.

Happy Mother's Day. God bless.