Therapy To Go
By Julie V. Inada

I had been seeing my therapist, Dr. Blackner, for a year, and I really thought she liked me, but then this one day, out of nowhere, she lights into me Ð why do you feel the need to bring coffee, you're casualizing your therapy, and all this other stuff about defensive armor and avoidance, blah blah. I stammered around a bit Ð well, it's only half a cup, etc., but what chance do you really have when it's your therapist?

Immediately after that, I went to the coffee shop to reflect. I'll get coffee anywhere, but I spend most of my time at The Beanery, a boxy little place on the corner of two main streets in Ashland. The chairs are rickety, and all the tables have wadded up newspapers under the legs in an attempt to stabilize. I am a "regular," a moniker that I accept hesitantly, as the other regulars are twenty years older than me, and are men, and are named Phil or Chuck.

When I can, I get the corner table that faces the patio. No matter how many hours I spend there, writing, reading, reformatting my "to do" list on my laptop, I get my coffee in a paper cup, and get a refill on the way out. I take coffee to work, classes, hair appointments, movies, walks, the gym, the bank, the dog park, ultrasound appointments, children's birthday parties, my in-laws' house where coffee will be served. You get the idea, seeing me without a 'to go' cup of coffee means that you're seeing me in bed asleep. I like the feel of it in my hand, heavy, warm and papery.

I sat at my table and looked out the window of The Beanery like a forlorn lover on a train. Was I using coffee to armor myself from my life? Was it just something for my hand to grip, something that said to friends, family and acquaintances, Yes, I'm with you, but I'm actually just having coffee, I don't really need you. I thought about my life before coffee Ð high school and a couple years of college Ð and it's all crap, please, home perms, topsiders, listening to Taylor Dane and Glass Tiger on cassette tapes? I became an adult about the time I started walking around with paper cups of coffee Ð coincidence?

When I was a junior at Oregon State University, there was no one walking around with coffee. Big red plastic cups of Budweiser, yes, but not coffee. I discovered the singular pleasure one day when I was at the student union, at my corner table with the view of the clock, studying for my English Lit. final. The exam was across campus in ten minutes and I still had half a cup of coffee left. I packed up and took the Styrofoam cup with me. Walking across the quad toward Mills Hall, I felt Ð I don't know, jaunty Ð with my cup of coffee. I wouldn't consider myself a jaunty person either; occasionally spry perhaps, but not jaunty. I took a sip every now and then, and felt like I still had the safety of my table at the student union and all my pens and paperclips with me. I contemplated Chaucer and Milton as I sauntered and sipped.

Then I noticed a guy walking toward me who was in my bio lab. The really cute guy, who I now remember as looking like Jude Law, but this was before Jude Law was invented. And he was smiling. See, the coffee? Magic. I was cooler, more relaxed, open. Not only smiling, he was chuckling, in anticipation of a joke we were about to share. As we passed, I beamed at my new boyfriend, then happened to look down at my Bravo Beavers! sweatshirt, now covered with a dark liquid, which had been blurping out of the little hole at the top of the lid with every step. I've since perfected my walking-with-coffee style.

By the time I moved to Portland, everyone was walking around with coffee; it was a full-on trend, unaffected by the water bottle craze of '96. If I was becoming a junkie, Portland was my dealer. Coffee shops on every corner Ð come in, read and write, get cozy, stay awhile, and then take a bit of us with you. I was teaching at a business college that was wedged between a Starbucks and a Greek restaurant which had really strong coffee served in aqua-blue paper cups. The coffee cup became another accessory to me, like a nice belt or scarf. I was underdressed without it.

Several years of drinking coffee from paper cups later, I arrived at motherhood, and I challenge anyone to convince me that I should have given up my adorable little quirk at this point. I had given up my career, my healthy skin, my sleep and my freedom to stay home with a really small, very needy person. Okay, it was beautiful, really, so fulfilling, but the only reason I got out of bed each day was to go to The Beanery for a cup of coffee and then to take it around as I attempted to figure out what the hell we were going to do all day. Some days that was what we did all day.

And I honestly cannot understand what's wrong with that. Who am I hurting? Okay, Dr. Blackner, I hear you. I get it. It's a crutch or something, right? But what's so great about walking around with no coffee?

I headed out to the narrow Beanery patio and perched on a cold green chair. Wrapping my hands around my 16-ounce paper cup of Sumatra, so warm, I breathed in the dark sharp smell. I grabbed the cell phone out of my pocket and dialed with my thumb.

"Dr. Genevieve Blackner's exchange, may I help you?"

"This is Julie Inada, I need to cancel my appointment Tuesday."

"Certainly. Would you like to reschedule?"

"No thanks."