I first published this post in my private blog on Friday, May 30, 2008. Almost three-and-a-half years later, I am gladdened to read it yet again, and to publish it yet again– this time for public consumption. Titled ‘Heart of the Matter’, it is a reflection on a simple plaque with a simple message. The show does go on… original post follows:
I hope this sign gets your attention and makes you pause for a moment. It is a sign that I found for a dollar some years back at the local thrift shop aptly named Treasure Mart. I suppose I could have placed it anywhere in the house, but I chose to put it on one of my kitchen walls since it somehow seemed to be the most conducive place to provoking thought, what with the coffee being there and all…
So, here it is: six simple words that exhort you to ‘take time to smell the coffee.’ Smell is an essential sense for humans, as it is for the rest of the animal kingdom, and one that is as important as the other four senses (sight, sound, touch and taste). Yet, we often tend to discount or even ignore it. Our hurried lives are packed with things to do, and places to go to, people to meet, and all sorts of minutiae to attend to that there doesn’t seem to be time to SMELL the coffee. Taste it, yes; check it for color, yes; ensure its hot enough, yes; but smell it? Yes! Please do.
Take time to smell it and let your head and heart draw its associations from that smell to the events and perhaps the people around you. And its not just the coffee that you ought to be stopping to smell, you know… its everything; its LIFE itself. Stop to take a deeper breath than usual, especially at the things that mean something to you; and the moment will be enhanced a hundred-fold as your eyes will take in the image that is before you, but your sense of smell will capture the feeling of the moment and bring it back to you when you next close your eyes and command that memory to surface.
Take time. To smell. The coffee.
