The Joys of Living at Camp: Morning

“Omigosh, omigosh, are these machines working?” A short dark-haired 13-year-old barely glances up at me—standing in front of the regular coffee machine—as she grabs a foam cup and places it under the rich foamy stream of cappuccino. “Omigosh, like caramel cappuccinos are like my favorite thing of the entire time. Omigosh, like I can’t even tell you,” she gushes to her friends as she gets back in line to dispose of her tray after breakfast.

This scenario has happened two mornings in a row now while I stand at the coffee machine in the dining hall, pouring mass-made thick black syrup into a styrofoam cup. Sharing my morning coffee with a million hyperenergetic teenagers high on the adrenaline of living together is not part of my usual routine.

My usual routine is me, stumbling out of bed and hitting the “start” button my coffeemaker, which was prepped the night before. While I wait for the coffee, I feed Coconut the Cat. We enjoy the first cup of coffee with silence, just sitting. We wake up to the idea of waking up. A book comes out to join us for the second cup. Then I can face the world, usually with breakfast by my side. Until then: don’t talk to me. I’m not awake.

So when I’m standing next to the cappuccino machine with a student who clearly runs on natural caffeine and a dull pain in my head reminds me that coffee was not my first friend of the day, I’m a little unsettled. And that’s what reminded me that students put me on my caffeine addiction in the first place.

Before I started teaching, coffee was a study stimulant or a traveling treat. It was something to take off the edge of a major paper or long trip. Summer camp and student teaching turned coffee into a necessity. In order to keep my energy levels high enough to track with adolescence, I needed the coffee as my crutch. As I traveled to Bolivia and taught, it became the familiar routine. As I continued to move after Bolivia, it stayed my familiar routine.

But there are two problems with coffee: #1—the headache that results of not drinking it after regularly consuming it for years. #2—its history. Coffee (and sugar), the Industrial Revolution, and the Slave Trade all climaxed around the same time. Or, rather, the Industrial Revolution elevated the demand for the coffee to stimulate the people producing, and the demand for the coffee increased the need for slaves to work the coffee fields (disclaimer: this is a simplified cause-effect rationale of history—the real story is more complex, as always). A recent raw food book suggests a third problem: #3—it’s actually poisonous to the body, which is why it’s a diarrheic and the body tries to get it out faster than other liquids.

You’d think that these three reasons would be enough to convince me to stop drinking coffee altogether, which would then alleviate my standing next to the hyper student in the morning breakfast line. But no—at least not right now. These will be the reasons that I eventually quit. But the middle of a three-week teaching stint is not the time. My own cause-effect chain is complicated too, involving that very student. For every ounce of caffeine she drinks, I probably need three ounces just to keep up with her. I will change my situation like this: buy free trade coffee and make it and enjoy it in my dorm room before going to breakfast. There’s some psychology involved here too…

One girl I know walks to Starbucks every morning for her coffee and a book. That’s a nice idea too… in theory.