Steaming Cups of Unsuspecting Nostalgia - Chloe Abella

If I lay back and close my eyes, I can hear the suspenseful drums of Bob Marley’s “Crazy Baldhead” playing from downstairs, like I’m back at my father’s house. The chanting, echoing calls of one reggae song after another pulling me out of bed and towards the scent of Folgers Classic Roast that trails from the kitchen and through every door and window.

My nose tingles even now. The overwhelming power of a giant black coffee bean hit my senses every single morning growing up, and though it’s been years I think it’s still embedded deep inside the part of my brain that remembers how many times I’d been sent in Vons for another tub of what looked to me like dirt. His stash tucked away in the freezer, he held his morning coffee high on his list of priorities. My dad would set his modest little machine up every night in ritual—ensuring his pot would be brewed before the Earth’s axis had turned. Sometimes the obnoxious beeping at the crack of dawn would be enough to wake me.

I’d come down the stairs, every step heavy with the weight of unwilling adolescence, and be greeted with a far too energized, already halfway dressed Chicano. His hair wasn’t yet slicked back in his signature shiny hairstyle. The warm scent of his favorite drink settled on me like one of those giant fluffy lion blankets from the swap meet. He’d be skanking around the kitchen floor with a bounce to his step, singing along to “Welcome to Jamrock” as if the air wasn’t still cold enough to show our breath. Our pug would tap dance around him, and he’d shift his performance to her. I’d shake my head at his positivity, and sit down on our torn-up yet sentimentally loved woven dining chairs, eyeing what my comically overbearing girl-dad had laid out for our breakfast. 

Fruit, cereal, and at least one thing he knows I absolutely won’t eat. I think it was his not-so-subtle way of stealing off of my plate. Never coffee. It wasn’t good for us, he said, it would stunt our growth and turn us into the Tasmanian Devil. If I keep my eyes closed, I can see the thick collectible Raider’s mug he specifically told us not to use. He’d separate it from the other million glasses we’d bought for him on our travels, and reserved it for his morning cup of joe. If I look even deeper still, I can see him standing at the kitchen island, nursing that black and white skull and crossbones with coffee vapor condensing on his mustache. 

When I smell it now, passing a cafe, or when I see some fancy coffee bean candle, it feels like a hug. Like in eighth grade when I won “Most Improved” for my lackluster string bass performance, and he engulfed me in a hug so filled with pride that I forgot how embarrassed I was. I think that’s why, when I catch the smallest hint of its essence in the air, my head starts to follow like a cartoon bloodhound. Earlier than I can remember, I’ve been searching for the things and the people that evoke the kind of warmth the synthesis of my father’s hug and the emotion coffee’s scent brings me. 

I think I’ll just have to be content with enjoying the way the smell rests on the roof of the mouth for a second—when I bring a cup close enough to sniff. And with the memories of my father that begin to flash behind my eyes each time students walk past with their steaming cups of unsuspecting nostalgia in the library, or at the bookstore. It’s an addiction on its own I suppose, relishing in the ability of such an underrated, earthy scent to send me into a state of reminiscence. 

I am often struck by how his love has shaped me into who I am. I am all that I am because of him. My dad is a poet, and a gifted writer. When me and my sister were kids, I never would have known this. He didn’t talk about it. I always saw him as Dad. The one who made us sit at the table for dinner every night. The one who told us in the car, “Listen to the lyrics girls, you know what he’s saying here?” And we’d sit in silence, listening to him repeat Bob Marley’s words, “Brainwash education to make us the fools… you hear that? This is important.” When I listen to these songs of my childhood now, I am reminded of how often he used music to show us what lens to look at the world with. How to notice the little things in life, yes the eye catching and soft—but also how to see through the bullshit, to recognize why some music resonates even decades later. 

I didn’t know he was a poet, but when I look back, I see now where it was hidden. He kept it reserved for the occasional speech, moments where he felt my sister and I deserved recognition beyond just a card and some cash. He passed down the poet to us. I see it in the way that I now look for the message in every song. In the stories he’s told us about growing up in southeast Fresno. I see it in the way a camping retreat can be not only a scenic view—but a reset from the hot mug of frustration that is Fresno. I see it in the way my sister craves a cup of coffee just like him. And although I see all of these things mirrored within us, I still find myself looking to the things I’ve avoided more often than not. 

Not once in my life have I been ignorant to the fact that I’ve been privileged to have a present, loving dad—but I’ve met my father’s alter ego. It’s hard to reminisce about my childhood sometimes, because I know that when I say things were complex—I feel guilty. I had everything I could ever want. I went to one of the top five schools in Fresno. We lived in a nice house down the street. My father was kind and generous towards us. But things just weren’t that simple. 

When I was a kid, and my parents were together, it was some Pacquiao fight or weekend party their friends were hosting that made me realize that the man they called “Greedy” was not my father as I knew him. Not only was I not supposed to call him that, but I was expected to not make trouble for the next few hours when he made an appearance. All night, my sister and I trailed behind the pretty older daughter of my parent’s friends, soaking up every detail of uncensored teenage lunacy and mentally jotting it down for future reference. We enjoyed ourselves in blissful ignorance—until he came swearing and stumbling through the event with my mom’s pissed off expression in the rear view, and I was rushed out to the car with no goodbyes and a racing heart. 

I remember thinking it was strange to know there was a side of my dad that only came out when his friends were around—just that morning I watched him spend the entire Saturday perfectly playing the role of overbearing-girl dad once again. We’d gone to my soccer game, it was our turn to bring snacks, and he’d be damned before I showed up empty-handed. I remembered him cheering, yelling for me to hustle towards the ball, and the triumphant smile on his face when I assisted my teammate to make a goal. Yet, as I pretended to watch the moon follow us on the way home from the party that same night, I saw how my mom couldn’t stand to look at him. In the morning the next day, my dad came out of the room late, and made a cup of coffee—he hadn’t set his machine’s alarm. He might have done the same thing the next night, and probably again the next weekend. But I always remembered him and his reggae and rock songs pulling me down the stairs for school on Monday like nothing happened. Even if it confused me, I never questioned his love for us—he was still there. I never thought of him as “Greedy”, because to me he was always selfless. 

I’ve got the reformed and renewed, sober Dad to appreciate now, but when I really look back, I’ve always wanted to know more. Growing up, I’d look through the books on his shelf with a curious mind. When did he get them all, why do I never see him reading? For the longest time, I wondered what my dad did when we went to our mom’s house. As far as I knew, we were his world. I remember bringing him his copy of Dante’s Inferno, questioning about the dark and eerie cover—laden with demons and angels. He sipped from his mug and told me he’d bought it for school. To my young mind, his vague non answers only brought more questions. He wouldn’t talk about his youth until we were “old enough”. I know now it’s because he wanted us to be proud of him, to remember his stories of delinquency as nothing more than lessons—to write our own stories. I don’t think he realized I’d be writing about him. That my story would always be an alternate, modified version of his. That I see his need to control everything in myself—along with his ego and his pride. Maybe that’s the universe’s way of getting back at him, making sure his lessons have stuck. 

If I lay back and close my eyes, I can see him as a college student the first time. Before he knew my mom, and before the realities of being a parent and partner could set in with inevitable change. When he’d go to Cypress Hill concerts and smoke weed and fuck around like the reckless kid he was. When he still lived at home with my grandma. I see the leaves sprinkle the ground on campus, and I think about what it was like in the fall of his first year at Fresno City. Did he drink coffee as he read Dante? Was he a poet then?

I think I can picture it. When we’re cruisin’ down the 180 in his Cadillac, my dad’s got two things in the cup holder: his travel coffee mug, and the Godfather of all vapes. He alternates between taking sips and white, pillowing hits as The Doors’ “LA Woman” blasts out of his speakers on our way to Sanger. As the wind whips my hair into my eyes, and the vanilla scent of his smoke scratches my throat, I envision what it probably looked like back then. Him and his buddies driving back and forth on this road, arms making waves in the fast moving breeze. That carefree lust for life that buzzed in the nineties air—making them feel invincible. Impromptu trips to the snow, or to Santa Cruz. Spending money on shit he didn’t need. Hanging out with people he probably shouldn’t have. When I look at pictures from this time, it always hits me how much I look like him—how much I think and probably act like him. I bet he procrastinated on his homework just like me, putting off his assignments for a taste of instant gratification. Putting on the same music he’d show me years later, rolling a joint the way I do. Instead of Gilmore Girls, he probably watched the Simpsons when he should’ve been doing his English paper. I imagine he’d party all night, and schlep himself out of bed to make a cup of coffee the next morning. Maybe then he’d read Dante. 

If I look even deeper, I can see him as a child. The Filipino in us is stronger when we’re young. I can see him with his dark, wild hair, his wide nose, and his highwaters. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen the old polaroids he keeps in a box in the closet, but I can see him with his grandma Connie sitting at her house. I don’t remember her beyond these photos, but I have held onto the stories my family shares when they’re feeling sentimental. He told me that she used to drink black coffee—every single day. She’d give him a little sip every now and then in those hours he spent at her house, playing and being spoiled. Caffeine and an already energetic Gemini with a genetically predisposed addictive personality equals a dangerous combination. I imagine him running around, jumping off her couch that may or may not have been covered in plastic. Tías in the kitchen reprimanding her for giving in to his every whim. I see her standing there, hand on her hip, with her own coffee vapor piling up on her red lips—snapping at them not to tell her what to do. 

I imagine my grandma coming in from work, tired and weighed down from the stress of being a young mom. She probably came home to her mother’s house after a long day, patting her son on the back with a heavy hand when he jumped up to greet her. I wonder if her sisters would come to gossip with her like mine does—if my grandma Connie would have a cup waiting for her on the counter. My dad tells me that everyone had their own relationship with her, I wonder what theirs was like. He’s got her picture next to his fancy new espresso machine, and the image of her hugging him with a toothy smile echoes in my mind. 

She looks a lot like my grandmother. Tiny gold hoops peek out from beneath her short waves of hair, and I’m reminded that I am not only me, but I am her. I am my dad, and his mother, and her mother. I’m haunted by the way they’ve passed down their traits to each other, how they’re slowly passing them to me. Their Mescalero stubbornness, their Chicano culture, their love of storytelling. They are the reason it feels like a cruel trick of fate that I can’t stand to let a drop of coffee pass my lips. No amount of cream, sugar, or wistful tie can sweeten it enough. I might be the only one in my family who doesn’t spend a portion of their paycheck on the decidedly luxurious thing that is coffee—that may be the only upside. 

I’m jealous of the relief a freshly brewed pot can bring, and the joy a collection of seasonal Starbucks cups can provide. I yearn for the aesthetic of the tortured writer sitting in the coffee shop. I’ve been reduced to ordering safe and unsophisticated hot chocolate at Denny’s. I wish I could sit at that dining table that my dad still has, on those loveshorn chairs, and drink a cup of coffee with him. He might share his poetry with me. I’ve never jonesed for an addiction so badly in my life. It’s not enough that I was a fiend for weed at sixteen, or a merciless advocate for retail therapy at twenty. I’d rather keep on holding onto the thought of getting a cute little cup of coffee every day, stirring my intentions into it and reveling in the generational appreciation of it all. Of leaving a mug on the ofrenda for my great grandmother. Maybe there’s still time.

Chloe Abella (she/her) is a proud Fresno writer studying Creative Writing as a first year in Fresno State's MFA program. Focusing on the painful beauty of life, her nonfiction and poetry is heavily influenced by love, nature, and her experiences as a Chicana woman.