Day 46: Smell the Coffee

Almost a year back, on my first day at Indiana University, I was trying to find Starbucks with a friend of mine.A fellow student pointed us in the direction and said keep going up the stairs "till you can feel, smell and see the coffee". We knew nothing at that point about how the next phase of our life was going to start, about how easy or hard our PhD programs were going to be, whether we should be worried about the things ahead or we would simply fit. I just sat at a desk and we ordered coffee and tea and decided we had plenty of time to decide. We never found out where the other one ended up.
                             This week after an entire year of my life I found myself sitting at almost the same table with two new friends of mine, still trying to figure out what it means to be wherever we are. And though the definitions, the meanings and reasons we ask that question had changed from time to time, I often tell myself, it was never about the coffee, but the company.

Smell the Coffee
In just this day, on a warm August high or a November low,
We were characters of a story book, the one we didn't write and a story we didn't know
We walked through the closed rooms and we found empty hallways,
Through lines that we waited for and in between quiet couches that lay.

"Smell the Coffee" I was told, I may not drink it at all,
I may stand and order the sizes, the Venti, Grande and tall,
I may punch out the stars and I may wait up in line,
But I still scribble at the coffee table, whenever I find time

There are those who will find my writing too easy, too mundane,
Among the many things we have kept for a while, both the joy and the pain,
Among the coffee ground, the steamed milk and etchings on the napkins where I write,
And waiting for the music to play, as my words find a way to come alive.