I hope your week is going great. Mine has been defined by uncertainty with a lot happening at the Caribbean...

As part of my efforts to keep anxiety away and life going on the best I can, I try to focus on little matters, so yesterday I went to make copies and stopped for coffee here at Vistamar, a commercial center 15 minutes' walk from my place. I'm telling you about it to respond to this week's prompt #tcsp - Week 145 ☕️

A cup of good coffee is nice no matter what if you ask me.

If I'm alone in a café and don't have a book in my hands, I'll probably check my email on my phone and take the opportunity to reply to messages. I don't tend to pay much attention to people around, and I'm glad if they don't pay much attention to me either; I suppose it's a habit of many nearsighted people who, like me, wander around sipping coffee in a blurry world. Of course, there are glasses for that (for the myopia part, not for the part about wanting to go unnoticed by humanity if my coffee is good and I'm behind in catching up with the hateful, hateful social media and messages, haha).

...But I do notice stuff here and there. For example, my eyes marvel when someone is very well dressed or has very nice hair. I like it when people look good, I don't really know why. I suppose these images surprise me because I can only notice these things when people come close enough; otherwise, I only see colorful figures and shadows passing by--or standing still.

And this has nothing to do with me forming an opinion of people based on their appearance whatsoever. I don't do that unless we're dealing with an obvious situation.

V. Woolf said that no matter how close you look at something you can never know the truth about it because there's no way you can get to know how it came to be. I take off my glasses to drink my coffee. They bother me when I eat or drink. So I look at things and people with my myopic eyes from my myopic distance. They become different things and people as they move closer or further away. I may have an idea of the world that fits the quantum era, haha, and I think Woolf intuitively understood something of that. I find this funny and interesting as I slowly sip, sip by sip, the coffee that has already overflowed from the cup.

A cup of coffee might not change the world, but it's a great beginning.

The bakery is half full, or half empty. The smell of coffee permeates everything.

The only think I can think of is that the cost of living is really high, inflation is destroying what little Christmas spirit the impoverished working class has left... I think about the almost $2 I earn as a university professor here in Venezuela and the $120 monthly bonus that ends up being less than half that, really. I need six times that for basic expenses, so I work, I manage, I struggle. I think that life, full of so many colors, changing shapes, intriguing shadows, sounds, and smells that don't care how short-sighted I may be, that beautiful and fragile life depends largely on having money to be able to continue existing and continue living it in a way that is rewarding. That's what I think about as I drink my coffee. Luckily, it's hot, with a sweet aroma and excellent taste. Coffee like this saves a day from absolute misery--I'm telling you.

All text and images are my own. I have taken the pictures with my Redmi 9T cell phone. And if any GIFs here, I've used GIPHY for all them.

Thank you so much for your visit :)

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