Coffee, Snow, and Company

Life Stuff

Snow glitters in winter sunshine. The house smells like coffee and it’s time for company.

In the winter, I have company every afternoon that I’m home. I used to settle the little ones in for their naps first, but now even my baby goes to school. When earth is muffled by snow and cold swirls around the window-frames, my duties quiet, too, and the warmth indoors invites me to a slower pace, to learning, and reflection. Winter offers an afternoon cup of coffee, my aqua striped throw, and a break from feeling like I should be two places at once. I feel present in the coziness of golden log walls and the gurgle of the coffee perk.

So, I pour the coffee, grab the throw, and pull a friend along with me to the couch. Sometimes they stay for twenty minutes; some days two hours is hardly long enough.

Some of my favorite guests are my old friends—Charles Dickens, Lucy Maud Montgomery, George MacDonald, Victor Hugo. Sometimes, I keep a pen and my “book of good words” nearby so I can transcribe wise or beautiful turns of phrase and sentence. I’m delighted by Dickens’s caricature-like descriptions of people; Hugo’s slow way of moving through parallel lives in conflict and war; Montgomery’s descriptions of nature and very relatable people; MacDonald’s thought-provoking philosophies about God and religion.

One of my most prized older visitors is C. S. Lewis. I always have a highlighter in hand when I invite him. And when he leaves, I sit with a faraway look, processing. He has me saying over and over, “That is so true. I love how you think.” Or perhaps he is exercising his brilliant and sometimes caustic wit, and I laugh aloud. I hope he doesn’t mind. I’m not always sure if he means to be funny.

Sometimes I invite wise friends my age—Brene Brown, Lysa TerKeurst, Kate Bowler. Brene talks about having courage to be vulnerable and about wholehearted living. Lysa has a clear, personable way of talking about relevant issues—establishing good relationship boundaries; learning how to choose between yes and no in life’s opportunities. Kate, diagnosed with cancer at 35, digs deeply into truths about coming undone with the realization that we can’t always have the life we would choose. I listen to friends like these with a highlighter in my hand, stuffing my brain with things I want to remember.

I first met Mitch Albom when I heard about his book Tuesdays With Morrie. So I looked him up and ended up having him over often. Mitch’s tender stories of people he knew have made me sigh, cry, and want to live and love better. I visited with him so much that for a while he had nothing more to tell me. But I recently learned he has another story to tell, so he will be a guest sometime again.

I’m glad I got to know Natalie Babbit and J.R.R. Tolkien. When they finish telling their stories, I’m left with a sweet, sad feeling. I feel I know what they’re saying, but I can’t put it into words. After Natalie told me her Kneeknock Rise story (all in one sitting), I sat my family down the next day and got her to tell it to them all in one sitting, too; it was that kind of story. When Tolkien finished his long parable of the journey of life, the triumph of goodness, and the deep, quiet reward of faithfulness, I cried.

Sometimes I invite Agatha Christie, Kate Morton, or Edgar Allen Poe. These guests, from their various generations, have thought much about human nature and its varied responses to stimulus and mystery, and they have things to teach me. I shiver as they speak, rearranging the throw over my shoulders, gasping at the plot twists.

I’ve even had coffee with William Shakespeare twice. Now there’s a stretch for the brain. When I visit with him, I have to listen carefully—his English is so outmoded. He tells me he has much, much more to say. So I’d like to have him in again this winter—but once a winter is enough of him.

Elizabeth Enright, Eleanor Estes, and Arleta Richardson are friends I like to invite in the long evenings when the children are home. More recently, Brian Jacques and Karina Yan Glaser have also joined our circle of acquaintances. These all tell delightful stories the whole family loves. We grab throws and settle in for a good time. When they pause, the children chant, “More! More! More!”

I invite intelligent men like Malcolm Gladwell or Oliver Sacks when I wish to broaden my mind on subjects such as neurology, psychology, the subconscious, and the seemingly arbitrary. I know they have more to say, and are some of the first I plan to invite this winter. I’m also arranging regular meetings with Alexander McCall Smith, Jan Karon, and AJ Pearce.

There are countless other friends who weave in and out of my days—too numerous to mention—becoming part of life’s fabric, influencing, challenging, shaping. The mementos from these friends fill shelves and crates about my home, and occupy places of honor as décor.

My coffee cup is empty. Did I mention that none of my visitors drink it? I stretch, sigh, and come back to reality and solid ash wood floors. The sun has gone behind clouds and snowflakes have begun a gentle waltz; I hadn’t even noticed.

Like the flakes that have begun to drift down outside, no two of these daily visits are exactly the same, and none alone is life-changing. But stacked up together they make a significant heap—a heap that warms me and makes me feel rich.

This article was first published in The Commonplace Journal Vol. 3: in the quiet of winter