Of all the small little things that make up a day I love most the coffee breaks at home. It is also a compass needle: if I can feel joy when preparing a coffee, I know it was all well. The mid-morning coffee are the most enjoyable, when the day is still long and malleable at wish.

From the top shelf, the one with the dead ivy which I promise myself to replace with a new one each time I prepare a coffee, I would take the tin box with ‘coffee’ printed on it. It is a rectangular box which fit my small hands and which I thus have little difficulty to grab from the high shelf.

I would put just the right amount of coffee in the Italian moka pot, pressing it lightly to get the stronger flavor my husband likes. The gasket would sometime get loose and in those times the coffee would spill out in drops all around the moka, making a mess of the stove. We always need a while before we remember to buy a new gasket; in the meantime, I tried to tighten the moka as hard as my force allowed me.

While waiting for the coffee, I would take out two small cups with the saucepan and two spoons, we have several cups of different shape and color and sometimes I liked to use the fancy ones, just for the two of us. I would put everything on a small tray, adding the sugar pot. In the few minutes left until the coffee was ready, I would glance out of the window and look at the sky. And this was always the moment where I would feel pure bless. We are home, we are safe, we are together. We would share the coffee together, mostly doing small talk, sometimes getting excited about a holiday or have a deeper heart to heart talk.

The bitter taste of the coffee would be diluted by a small mountain of sugar accumulated at the bottom of the espresso cup, and while my brain would get a kick from the sweetness of the coffee, so my heart would get a kick from the short moment which belonged to our common world.