In the first week of July, for the third time this year, a fairly mild viral cold incubated a subsequent bacterial infection in my sinuses, producing fever, intense sinus congestion, and general malaise. After starting antibiotics a week later, I slowly felt much better over the two-week course.
Perhaps as part of this general distress, and certainly as part of my love / hate relationship with coffee, I resolved once again to quit the stuff. However, on the night of the 4th, I did something different. I got out of bed and threw away all the coffee I had in the freezer: parts of half pounds of Brazilian coffee from Blue Bottle and Ritual. (Now, I'm sure that some of you will say, "Well, of course, you wanted to throw away the Brazilian. You should have been drinking [your favorite coffee].", but that's not where I'm going with this.) The previous time I quit, it took about twelve days to get through withdrawal, and this time was pretty much that. For the first days, it was pretty bad, but it was often difficult to tell the caffeine-withdrawal headache from the sinus infection pressure headache. Towards the end, it was hard to tell caffeine-withdrawal grogginess from antibiotic-side-effect dizziness.
Instead of buying, grinding, brewing, drinking, and cleaning up after coffee, and especially while unemployed, I am trying to meditate more. I had thought I could both drink coffee and meditate, since the Buddha nature is in all things, but in practice for me it seems to be an "exclusive or" proposition. The coffee, however delicious, makes me feel more stressed, while it reduces my ability to focus and remember all the things I want to do. This is fine if I have a lot of non-thoughtful tasks that need energy to be done, but not so great if I have to think carefully about what I'm doing. Apparently, I generally respond to stress not by being frenetic, but by shutting down, so the "excitement" of caffeine is not terribly practical. Job-hunting is stressful enough.
Coffee also reduces my openness to stopping activity for a while to sit, even if the "activity" is not terribly productive. And besides being critical for my own growth, meditative cultivation is foundation of my and L's relationship, and of our marriage vows in particular. By this, I mean that the presence of mind which comes from sitting is the basis from which we try to act towards ourselves, each other, and our friends and families.
Even after all this, I still can't say I won't continue drinking coffee at some point, but for now it seems like I'd be better off if it were only the occasional indulgence.
