Coffee

Trying to live green in a black and white world. That’s how I feel sometimes.

I generally start my day with a giant travel mug full of green tea with one spoon of raw unfiltered organic honey, which I make at home and take to work. It will last until around 8 or 9 am (I make it at 4 am).

I eat breakfast around the time my tea runs out. Then I have a cup or four of black coffee in these 8 ounce styrofoam cups. After that it’s water the rest of the day - with an occasional afternoon cup of lemon-ginger tea and my nightly “sleepytime” tea before... sleepy time.

I am not a fan of these cups though. Not only is styrofoam supposed to be bad for us as humans, and terrible for the environment (they say this stuff takes up as much as 30% of the space in landfills, and can last for 500 years), I mostly dislike these cups because they are only 8 ounces! Much too small.

My boss is not a coffee drinker (strictly diet coke - all day every day), so he would probably rather not even have a coffee pot. We had 12 oz cups for awhile and he threw a fit. He thought it was too wasteful.

Anyway, I sometimes feel bad using just one of these styrofoam cups per day. I would prefer to leave less of a footprint on the planet. Though, to be honest, most of the time I would prefer to be a lot less conscientious. I suppose it's a blessing and a curse. Sort of a small cup of suck...

Sometimes it's the smallest of things that can trip us up though, isn't it? It's just a cup of coffee... it's only 8 ounces... such a small sin... Surely it won't hurt anything, right?

Words can be small yet powerful. As can thoughts. The teeniest of habits can snowball into a mountainous mess.

Black coffee in a styrofoam cup. You, and me. Today. Right now.

What are you doing?

**Photo from my perch at the Y, looking out onto Harrison Street.