The Slow Passage of Time

Aunt Ana was a big coffee drinker, but don't be mistaken, she wasn't the type of person who drank many cups of coffee a day. You could actually say she drank very little, even though you saw her with her coffee cup in her hand all the time.

She liked to drink her coffee extremely slowly; she could spend hours drinking a single cup of coffee; she didn't mind in the least if it got cold in the cup. She used to say that to appreciate good coffee, you had to drink it in such a way that you started tasting it when it was very hot and finished it when it was completely cold. "Otherwise, you'll never be able to discover the true flavor of this beverage of the gods," she would tell me when I brought her the cup I thought I'd left behind somewhere.

And Aunt Ana left her coffee cup scattered everywhere. Sometimes I, a child back then, was surprised to see the cups everywhere: next to the radio, on top of the television, in the bathroom, on the nightstand in her room, next to the tub where she hand-washed clothes, or in any corner of the spacious patio of the house where she lived.

In my childhood imagination, I was convinced that my aunt was losing her memory, and that's why she left the cup in the strangest places. I thought I was doing her a great favor by bringing it to her.

But every time I brought her the cup, she thanked me and told me I had saved her the trip to the place where I had found it. In fact, she perfectly remembered every single place where she left her cup of coffee, in that strange ritual of drinking it as slowly as possible. Perhaps there was something Zen-like about Aunt's mindset.

Aunt didn't like drinking coffee with other people, especially when she was visiting someone else's house. In fact, she felt very uncomfortable when someone said to her, "But Ana, you've barely had your coffee. Maybe you're feeling sick," or worse, when an acquaintance would complain, "Gosh, Ana, I don't know how to make a coffee you like anymore. You always leave the cup full, as if you hadn't touched it..."

In all these cases, Aunt would put on a resigned face and remind the others that she liked to drink her coffee very slowly, but apparently that explanation wasn't enough because people always criticized her for leaving the cups almost full.

To avoid those unpleasant moments, my aunt took me with her whenever she visited someone. Together, we had devised a secret plan to keep people from making impertinent comments about her slow coffee drinking habits.

The plan was very simple and efficient: she always asked for a little more than half a cup, took a small sip, and if the hosts weren't looking, she'd pass me the cup so I could take a good gulp. That way, we managed to finish her coffee at the same time as everyone else.

The problem for me was that these moments usually occurred when the coffee was still piping hot. And more than once, I felt like my tongue was burning as I took the necessary gulp so my aunt wouldn't embarrass herself with the crowd.

The good thing was that after the visits, my aunt rewarded my loyalty and goodwill by taking me to eat ice cream at some places in Caracas, where she claimed they made the best ice cream in the city.

If my aunt were still alive, she would surely scold me for my coffee drinking style. Unlike her, I tend to drink it very quickly; I like to feel it hot all the way through, from start to finish.

This sometimes makes me feel a little uncomfortable when I'm with others and see my cup empty when theirs is barely half full. But there's a huge variety in this area, and everyone has their own pace. From the ultra-slow like Aunt Ana to those like me, who empty their cups in just a few gulps.

Thank you for your time.