Relaxing Your Grip

I began to read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn some months ago, before my latest C.S. Lewis journey, but put it down because of the intensity of the description of hard times. One has to be sufficiently removed from trauma to enjoy this sort of thing, which I wasn't at the time. I think I'll get back to it eventually though. However, a scene keeps lingering in my mind. I am pretty frugal and scorn waste, (though closer examination would undoubtedly reveal how wasteful I am) so when the mother of the little girl gave her a cup of coffee every night, just for the pleasure of its warmth in her cupped hand, and then allowed her to pour it down the drain, as if they could afford to be extravagant, I felt stricken. I will either drink leftover coffee the next day, or pour it in my garden if it's older than that. I've had so many frustrated talks to my children about not opening a new bag of Great Value bread before the last heel, well sometimes I let them throw away the heel, is gone, that I fear they are traumatized. I try very hard to use every left-over, and consider it a personal failure to have to throw away any moldy food.

George provides very well for our family and refuses to drink leftover coffee. But he only drinks it on Saturday morning, as he leaves too early in the morning on weekdays to enjoy a cup. Therefore I make sure that I use up the last drop on Friday, because it is his gift to me to bring me (fresh) coffee and toast on Saturday morning. Today though, I may have had a breakthrough. I buy Folgers coffee in the big value-container, and I am getting to the last bit at the bottom. I have already bought its replacement. Today, I made 10 cups instead of 8, just to get rid of it. I will probably go ahead and drink part of the leftovers tomorrow morning (See My Dinner With Andre for further context), but there may be more left from the 10 original cups which I will have to pour in the garden. But to do this premeditatedly, in anticipation of waste, is a step, and its because I want to drink from a fresh, new, nothing-like-breaking-the-seal-on-new-coffee, container.

So maybe after I finish That Hideous Strength I'll get back to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. We'll see.