Grounds.
On love, loss, and instant coffee.
A few weeks ago my Nespresso machine crapped out. I turned it on and pressed the button that usually gets it to do its thing, but, well, it didn’t. The white light went from solid to a rapid blinking distress signal, then turned orange, then it was maybe red, clearly it was sending an SOS. And then all the lights went out. It died.
It was around 6:30am, the night time of the morning, and I was in some sort of pajama situation. My kids still had to be woken up, I had to make them breakfast, and sort out whatever I could cobble together to send them for lunch (a hunk of cheese, a tub of Little Sesame hummus, a pita bread for Sam, a canister of leftover sushi rice and miso salmon and avocado for EIji?), and I had no coffee. In the dark of winter, in my kitchen, I wondered, how had I gotten here?
Look, I’ve not always been a Nespresso person. I’m from Queens. I was raised by a mom who was a single parent. We were not and are not Nespresso people. Mom spooned Sanka or Maxwell House into her cup. We were never that fancy.
In fact, when Craig and I were married we had a regular old drip coffee machine, I think it was a Cuisinart or maybe it was a Mr. Coffee. Whatever it was, it wasn’t a Smeg or some pour-over thing, or even a French Press. It was a plain old coffee maker, the kind you might find in the break room, the one with the glass carafe that would brew dark water that was marginally caffeinated, burbling to life every morning, coughing steam in little huffs, making a decent cup.
The point was there was a lot of it, coffee in quantity was the key, particularly after we had kids. And to make it feel special, Craig got me a little coffee foamer because he knew I liked my milk hot. He was thoughtful. He noticed things, he listened to me. He was a good husband, a great friend. I loved him. And yet, we broke apart.
A few years ago, I shattered our life, like a car crash, obliterated it. It felt that way, like there were pieces of windshield glass strewn all over the floor. What I came to learn was this: some pieces were large and easy to find, but others quite a bit smaller, little fragments, hard to see, nearly invisible. The kind I’d only find later, walking barefoot in the night, defenseless, when they would slip into the soft soles of my feet, and get lodged inside.
I found they lurked even when I thought they had all been swept up, the same way when a year had passed, then two, and I thought it was better, when I wasn’t as raw, when the kids were used to the 5-5-2-2 custody schedule. When I would take Sam to school, walk Eiji to the subway, and know they would not come home to me that night. They would be with their dad. And I would be alone, without my children. And I would feel the shards, still cutting, lodged somewhere inside me.
After we told the kids, after he moved out, after the divorce, which was settled very quickly, I rented a house out in the Rockaways for a few days. It was the first time the kids were with Craig for the weekend, and it was an adjustment, not having them with me. I felt naked, like I’d walked outside without any pants. It did not feel good.
I love the beach and the water, and I thought I needed a little time away. Being alone in my house without my kids might not be a good thing. I found a little bungalow near Beach 67th on AirBnB, with two bedrooms and a small yard. It was owned by a former Calvin Klein designer, and it felt like a Boho Malibu beach shack. It was perfect. I could walk to the beach and swim, listen to the waves, watch the sun come up and come down, and fill the time in between with books, runs, and thoughts of how I would make a new life that was good for the kids and for me.
That first morning, I looked around for a coffee maker and couldn't find one. Eventually I found a machine I discovered was a Nespresso – something I’d never used before. Once I figured out how to power it on and work it (I had to watch a couple of YouTube videos and it was pretty much afternoon by then), I absolutely loved it. The coffee was rich and dark, and it tasted special with that glossy sheen of crema over the top. I liked that it wasn’t poured from an old glass carafe stained brown from coffee poured over a lifetime of a lost marriage.
There was a little electric aerator for the milk, too, so I had a nice frothy foamy cup in the mornings before I went for a run along the beach boardwalk. The coffee made me feel good. It was a nice thing. I was trying to be good to myself. Maybe this was one way to go about it. When I got home, I ordered a Nespresso machine for myself. I would not have my kids every day, but I would have very good coffee. Not apples to apples, but still.
Back in my Brooklyn kitchen, in the small hours of the day, I needed coffee, and the damn machine was not interested in being revived. I googled the flashing lights and apparently I had to descale the machine, which entailed buying some sort of magic liquid and watching more YouTube videos, none of which was going to happen at 6:30am. How would I get coffee!!!! I might have started to panic. But then, I remembered.
When I was in Israel last year, visiting my cousin Yuval, he had instant coffee at his Tel Aviv apartment. It was called Elite and it came in a glass jar that was sort of a cross between a cylinder and a rectangle, filled to the brim with dark freeze-dried grinds. I remember thinking to myself that first morning he took it out for me: instant coffee? This is not going to work. How wrong I was. I loved it so much. I don’t know if that’s because it was actually good, or because I was so happy to be with Yuval and my kids, all of us together, but I had never had better coffee.
And so we drank his instant coffee every morning, heating water in the electric kettle, spooning the freeze-dried grounds into the bottom of a mug, adding the hot water, stirring, and adding some milk. We’d drink it slowly at the kitchen counter just the two of us chatting softly until everyone else was awake. Or we would have it at the dining table with the kids after a trip to The Bakery on Dizengoff for kouign amann, donuts, croissants, and whatever fantastic tahini sesame chocolate babka thing was fetched.
The coffee was not what I expected from freeze-dried instant. It wasn’t bitter, nor bland; it was actually quite good. There was a taste to it that was not like anything I could identify, it was coffee-ish, yes but maybe something else, something slightly chocolatey, or chocolate-adjacent, maybe something slightly tart like tea tannins? Whatever it was, it was, I loved it.
I loved the freeze-dried grounds, almost like sprinkles, so light, like fallen snow in the cup. I liked watching the water melt them into a brew, and the little foam that came up at the top after a few good stirs. I sipped it with Yuval, over that week of February mornings, listening to stories of my family, talking about all our shared Persian recipes, about our grandparents, piecing together the way we all fit.
Yuval had been divorced too. It was not easy, he knew. He listened and comforted me. He told me he understood what I was feeling, the bottomless loss, but that he saw the way I was with the kids, all the love there, how happy they were. He said he saw the way I was with Craig, who was traveling with us. I sipped my coffee. I listened. He said it was going to be okay. And I kind of believed him. It was a direction I was willing to go in.
Towards the end of the trip, I told Yuval I wanted to get some Elite to take home. I mentioned how much I loved it and wanted to have it in Brooklyn to remind me of our mornings together. “Andrea, please, here,” he said, and pulled the jar from his shelf, handing it to me, mostly full, just a few spoons removed from the last morning we were together.
Back in Brooklyn, Nespresso on the fritz, frazzled in my pajamas, I opened the pantry doors, and there it was, on the top shelf. I can’t tell you how happy I was to find it. I pulled it down, unscrewed the top and breathed in. The air filled with the air from Yuval’s apartment, like a memory air freshener.
I put on the kettle and added two spoonfuls to the bottom of my mug, listening to the grounds land softly in a heap. The kettle started to whistle, and I poured in the hot water; the grounds melted and vanished, instantly becoming coffee. I heated my milk with the Nespresso aerator (that was still working), poured it over the top, adding some foam. I took a sip. It was still the same: rich, dark, slightly tannic. And the emotion too, turned on like a light switch, putting me back in Tel Aviv, in the warmth of his small narrow kitchen, having breakfast with Yuval and the kids, waking up together, planning what would become of our day, believing things would work out.
The next day, I got the descaling liquid. I watched more YouTube videos. I did all the things: pressed the button seven times, filled the tank, clicked my heels together, and whistled or whatever maddening series of steps it required. When I was done, it seemed to work fine. My boyfriend was over. I made him a cup of coffee. I had fixed it, or so I thought.
But then, when I went to make my cup, it happened again. The machine blinked and balked, sputtered and stopped. The orange lights were back. I reset the machine, unplugged it and plugged it back in. But it would not make coffee. I put the kettle on and pulled the freeze-dried down from the shelf, and waited for the water to boil. I was okay, not perfect, definitely scarred, but I was good. Maybe I didn’t need the Nespresso anymore.
I nearly cried reading this. So beautifully touching. Such exquisite writing. I was really moved.
This is so beautiful! I love the way you interwove the threads- I can feel all of what it feels like to go through a divorce, the loss, the renewal, the fear, the lonliness and ultimately the hope. I have been there and you nailed it!