The Latte Lifestyle
Heidi Sewall
I am certain my mom never had a latte.
Born in 1928—the same year Mickey Mouse appeared on the scene—percolated coffee was the norm for us. Mom drank Maxwell House, or was it Folgers? The pot was hot throughout the day, her cup refilled often.
I believe she would have loved the fancy coffee drinks we enjoy now. Anything with sugar and fat was a delight to her palette and she would have been thrilled with a dark roast beverage. Had she lived long enough, she might have followed the whims of her granddaughter and ordered a custom drink: raspberry mocha with whip and caramel drizzle on top. Oh, and chocolate sprinkles if you have them.
But no matter how grand the drink, it would have been upstaged by the thrill of sitting in a coffee shop talking with someone. Mom was a social being, fueled as much by conversation as by coffee. She took after her father, Henry, when it came to talking. He once spent two hours chatting in the hardware store leaving only when he had either run out of topics or remembered that his wife was waiting for him in the car. Henry and, in turn, Mom could talk anyone into the ground. They lived for socializing.
Born an extrovert and raised around robust conversation, Mom’s social life receded when she assumed the stay-at-home roles of mother to her kids and receptionist for her husband’s contracting business. The family phone was also the business line and reserved primarily for
work-related calls. Answering machines and cell phones, had they been available in her day, would have freed her to spend a few hours visiting with friends and neighbors. With limited free time and no coffee shop in our rural farming community, Mom would never experience the pleasures of a latte lifestyle.
That luxury was to be mine.
My first café experience was on the Champs-Élysées in Paris. I was 16 and seated with three other teenagers around a wrought iron table under a multicolored umbrella. A blurry photo from that June day in 1974 shows us basking in the warm summer air and smiling broadly. Going from the wheat fields of rural America on a trip that included the most romantic city in Europe was a colossal experience. I was gloriously wrapped in the camaraderie, the excitement, the beauty, and yes, the privilege of being a cultural exchange student.
My mother was at home sipping Folgers—or was it Maxwell House? My parents’ blue-collar work and their thrifty fiscal management provided the money for my European adventure. Years later I was boosted up the financial ladder into the white-collar class thanks to my husband’s employment. By the time my daughter was born, and before she was old enough to order that mocha with caramel drizzle, I was well established in the coffee shop scene. It made sense to spend an hour drinking coffee, often with other mothers, while waiting to take my child home from extracurricular activities. I lived the latte lifestyle gleefully until divorce sent me sliding back down to working class as easily as if I were a pawn in the kids’ Chutes and Ladders board game.
I continued my affair with coffee shops despite working full-time for a modest secretarial salary. The habit was easy thanks to the Starbucks a few doors down from my office. Now retired, I remain loyal to drinking lattes at a local coffee shop. Stepping in line lets me keep the memory of that glistening moment in Paris and all the coffee companions who have joined me since then.
The barista has my order memorized: “Tall latte, regular milk.”
This one’s for you Mom.
Heidi Sewall
Heidi Jean Sewall is a nonfiction writer of micro and flash memoir and a grant writer for a nonprofit animal welfare organization, People Saving Animals. A co-author and technical editor, she published college textbooks through McGraw Hill and International Thomson Publishing. Heidi’s business writing includes work at Microsoft Corporation, the University of Washington, and Copper Canyon Press. She is a member of the Northwest Editors Guild in her home state of Washington.