Mocha the Week 5 – Death and Decaf
The Richmond Café, Richmond Street
Hello! I’m here again after yet another sizeable break. Look let’s face facts, I’m not going to manage these once a week every week. Life keeps getting in the way of coffee. I know, I know HOW VERY DARE IT?? But dare it does, and I am powerless to stop it. Basically, after I posted my last review, I finally succumbed to the bugs my kids and husband were emitting all over the shop and got sick. I deeply resent getting ill, because in my warped little mind, which has been conditioned not to show any sort of negative emotion since I was 11, being sick is for absolute weakling whiners who need to just grow up and get on with it. But…in this instance, I kept telling myself I was fine, I was fine, I was fine, until I was violently throwing up all over my bedroom walls and carpet. And all over the landing walls and carpet. And all over the bathroom floor. All because I’d kept pushing against it and doing too much when I should have just laid in a heap with my feverish family to binge-watch Gabby’s Dollhouse while mainlining Lemsip.
Anyway! We’re all back on our feet (for now), and I managed to get out into this most gorgeous of autumns for a coffee! This week’s latte* hotspot is The Richmond Café, a place I’ve walked, driven and bussed by approximately one hundred thousand times, but have never been in. It was suggested by my inaugural guest and beloved old pal Christina Neuwirth. Christina is a writer/researcher/bookseller and all-round excellent person who I’ve known for…a really long time at this point. I can’t remember the exact moment we met – who knows, maybe (probably) it was in a parallel universe – but I always love our chats and feel very comfortable discussing grief and the intricacies of bereavement with them. Christina knows all too well what it’s like to live with the weight of devastating loss, having lost both their parents to separate illnesses, years apart.
We managed to cover a whole spectrum of “grief shit” during the hour and a half we were together, but first, let’s talk about the coffee (just in case that’s what any of you are actually here for). As I’ve mentioned somewhere previously, I was thinking about experimenting with a flat white instead of a latte, so that’s what I did this week. I would say…I honestly couldn’t tell you the difference based on the drink I was served. It was a perfectly drinkable, pretty-effing-strong-actually cuppa joe, but for me, not a standout delectation in Edinburgh’s extensive catalogue of coffee hubs. The café itself is lovely (as ever, I forgot to take a pic of the front!). Warm, welcoming, plenty of seating, quick service and not overly pricey. It would be a great place to go on those slightly hungover mornings when you and your pals need a firm injection of caffeine and a bacon roll. There’s hustle, bustle, pleasant staff and a sliver of a view of Arthur’s Seat out the window, all of which makes for a great spot to meet up with a friend for a long-overdue catch up.
Christina, a self-confessed “decaf truther”, ordered a peppermint tea and explained to me their theory that (paraphrasing, but basically) decaf is a lie cooked up by Big Coffee to keep everyone addicted to the hard stuff. I must admit I kind of agree – I just don’t think you can perform a magic spell on coffee beans or tea leaves to remove a component part of their natural makeup, sorry not sorry. I’m fairly sensitive to most stimulants (the humblest of brags), and if I have a decaf coffee, I still find myself mildly wired. But, as we discussed, maybe that’s just a placebo effect. Who can say? Certainly not me with my literally zero knowledge or experience of the decaffeination process.
Anyway, the reason Christina has given up caffeine is the effect it has on their anxiety levels. Yes! Anxiety! That spiky little beast we all know and love (hate). Personally, I tread a fine line with coffee, a delicate balancing act between not drinking it at all and feeling dull and depressed, and drinking so much of it I can almost hear the ghosts creaking through the walls, coming to get me. Not that there’s a competition between my mental health complaints, but I would always prefer mild anxiety over even the smallest hint of depression any day, so I drink two cups a day, max (…unless I need three). But as with anything in life, each to their own and I respect anyone who has the willpower to reject caffeine once it has its rich, delicious claws into you.
That being said, anxiety is an absolute mother effer. If depression is like coming to a standstill on a busy motorway and waiting for something to kill you, anxiety is like someone taping your foot to the pedal and forcing it to the floor. You’re still kind of, almost in control, but MY GOD, do you have to stay vigilant. Well, that’s how it is for me anyway.
Christina and I chatted about the anxiety that comes with multiple close bereavements, the way, without help, it builds and compounds until it becomes almost entirely unmanageable. As Christina suggested, people might assume that because you’ve dealt with one really upsetting, awful thing, you’re more prepared if/when the next one comes along. Maybe that’s true for some people, but not us. Each bereavement is a big, heavy slab that gets strapped onto your back, on top of the last one, and the weight never gets lighter, you just have to get used to carrying more of it.
One of the sad and absurd (but also strangely comforting and actually quite funny?) things me and Christina found we have in common during our chat is our proclivity for overthinking and attempting to predict the future. Like, if we can just imagine every single possible bad thing that could ever happen, every awful way our loved ones might die, every unexpected and shattering phone call we might receive to say someone is gone, then we can be completely prepared for all the worst things when they come. Ummm, earth to Marianne and Christina, this is B with a capital S!
I cannot tell you the number of hours I’ve spent in therapy explaining how, before my siblings died, I could “just feel that something bad was coming” and that, therefore, meant their deaths were my fault because I didn’t say anything about the bad vibes I was feeling/find a way to stop their unstoppable deaths from happening. And the number of times my very patient, rational therapist has told me I am not a magical being who can see the future** and, even if I could, would I really have allowed them to die? Every time I am forced to admit that no, I’m not a psychopath, they are people I love deeply and if there had been any possible way for me to help them, I would have done it without question. We simply cannot sustain living with the constant guilt, the unending fear that something terrible is coming. It just makes those big slabs of grief a hundred times harder to cart around with us all the time and we wind up missing out on the good things in life.
However, we also talked about the fact that, for us, losing important people hasn’t inspired us to go out and grab life by the whatevers. Like, for example, my brother died after complex heart surgery when I was 11. Some people might decide then and there that they’re going to go become a superstar cardio physician as a means of conquering their demons/helping others in similar situations. Me, I said abso-fucking-lutely not. It was excruciating and heartbreaking and not something I would ever want to witness again, thanks. Similarly, Christina talked about the strange expectation placed on the suddenly bereaved that they will automatically want to “get out there and live a little”, aka go travelling, do a bungee jump, swim with mermaids or whatever. And they also, for now at least, say no thank you to this path. AND THAT’S TOTALLY FINE, ALRIGHT? We can just…lead our lives in the way that we were sort of planning anyway.
That’s not to say loss doesn’t change your perspective on life. Of course it does (see previous post about finding joy again for one of my hot takes on that). But does it fundamentally change who you are as a person? Your goals, your aspirations? I’m not sure. To be honest, I’ve been grieving so long I’ll never know who I was going to be without it. And then I think, well, I always wanted to be a writer and here I am still hacking away trying to do that. I’m a few years behind the imaginary schedule in my head, sure. And I didn’t think my work would constantly revolve around death, dying and dealing with it. There have been periods when I thought I’d given it up, really, truly forever this time, buuuut I always find my way back to oversharing my opinions and encouraging people to read them.
On that note, while there’s always more ground to cover, this is already very long. I want to say a MEGA thank you to Christina for getting coffee/decaf alternative with me and for sharing their thoughts on these tough topics. It was really nice to have a pal along for the ride. Until next tiiiiiiime xxx
*flat white, as I explain later!
**JUST FYI, I do genuinely feel like I might be a bit psychic though? Therapist says NOT POSSIBLE, but I still say YES, I AM A LITTLE BIT THOUGH.