He said from the moment he turned forty, he had been considering retirement. It wasn’t that he didn’t love his work or wasn’t great at what he did. He did and he was. But the work demands didn’t apportion him the privilege to write as often as he wished he could; or dwell into more serious topics requiring tremendous amount of research. So, it was usually a line or two here, a note there which rendered little creative satisfaction. I asked if he had heard about how life was here and now or ‘Don’t wait to begin that life you crave for. Do it now?’. He said of course, who hadn’t? But those were cliches. Reality was different. He asked me how many people I knew had the energy, in a bustling metropolis like his, to wake up at the crack of dawn, visit the gym, travel and hour and half to work, throw oneself in a flurry of meetings, negotiations and then reach home after a two hour drive in mind numbing traffic past 9 pm and still had the energy of a young lad and the mind of a seer to be able to come up with a few decent sentences ? He said to begin a new chapter, one must close a chapter. It wasn’t about sitting on the bank of a river and dipping your feet in, tentative, and convenient. It was about diving right in, learning to swim amid the ebb and flow of currents. Wasn’t that how great swimmers were born? I nodded. He drew the mug on the table toward him and peered in. Satisfied at what he found inside, he held the cup to his lips and took a sip. “Take this for instance”, he said raising the mug slightly, wiping off a rich foamy white cream mustache off his lips. “Did you know that I swore by coffee for twenty-five years? Sure, I’d enjoy hot chocolate sometimes, on Sunday evenings, at Starbucks. When I had nothing to do. Weekdays were for coffee. Weekends for hot chocolate. Then it struck me. I drank coffee because caffeine helped me work late hours. What I drank on weekends, at leisure, was my true calling. Isn’t that how it is always? About most things? So, I switched”, he snapped his fingers, his eyes shining “just like that, one bright day. And have never looked back since.”
I picked up my cup of coffee, inadvertently peering in, relieved to see the venti, tall, frothy and still hot.
Vanilla Hues 