Disjointed Reminiscence of a Sole Survivor

Martha Kennedy 12 Comments

I got coffee for Christmas. It was good, but now it has vanished, and I’m back to the old same brew. Beautiful stuff. Dark and fierce unlike this beautiful, springlike morning with the radio playing songs from 1980 carrying me down something that is not so much as memory lane as memory’s house of horrors. No, not really but that sounds good, doesn’t it?

The best part of 1980 as far as I recall was going to life drawing sessions at Muddy Waters of the Platte RIP (coffee house, used book store, auditorium) every Monday with my friend, Wes Kennedy. That led to my first painting show.

The man in my life at the time was in Saudi Arabia teaching at the University of Riyadh so I was enjoying a year’s reprieve from that complicated mess. The relationship would die in 1981 after five years of wrestling with impossibility and the conundrum of impossible love.

I walked to and from work every day, down Denver’s old flagstone sidewalks to the Wall Street of the West (17th street), a different Denver from that you might visit today. Much smaller, less flash. That year I moved into my favorite ever apartment which this house resembles.

This coffee is so good.

That was also the year I began being serious about the coffee I drank. There were a lot of steps between then and now, but I was on the road. There was only one place to buy so-called “gourmet” coffee in Denver at the time, a fancy grocery store on Larimer Street where I bought an electric grinder.

I take my last sip of this magical elixir before setting the empty cup on the floor for Teddy. All of this seems like a long time ago, and, of course, it was. I wasn’t 19. I was 29, still, this song from 1980 kind of sums it up when I look back on that young woman.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2023/02/04/rdp-saturday-vanish/

12 thoughts on “Disjointed Reminiscence of a Sole Survivor”

  1. That was a pretty good vanishing act over at RDP. When I clicked on your link…you had vanished!! Wish my coffee hadn’t vanished…would have been nice to enjoy while listening to your music choice.

  3. We had a wonderful coffee shop downtown that was mentioned in a book about great neighborhood shops and then it vanished. Now, the crafty coffee shops pop up that charge ridiculously high prices for less than a pound of coffee. I can’t afford those, so I stick with the coffee recommended by a good friend–LaVazza coffee. I offer you blessings every morning, Martha. Even my husband says, ‘It’s strong, but it’s good.’ When our local Publix grocery offers it on BOGO, I stock up. Thank you SO much for the great recommendation. ☕😘

    • That is good stuff. My friend sent me two pounds of some special not-all-that-dark blend from Lavazza. I enjoyed it very much. Tasty and aromatic, but not the dark roast I like best, still, a really wonderful gift.

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