The Wedding

Sometimes I dream that it never happened. That the huge wedding with all the flowers, ten bridesmaids and the whitest, most beautiful dress I had ever owned. After waking from those dreams I would sit in the giant bed covered in silk and keep my eyes closed for a minute savoring the dream, savoring the idea that the wedding had never occured, that I was now not sitting in this luxurious bed in the biggest house I had ever seen or was ever likely to see again. That instead I was sitting in a narrow bed in a small farm house on the edge of civilization. On those days after the dream I feel listless and anxious as if I am waiting for my real life to start. I fear that it will never start, that I will not ever experience joy again. The fears are very real becasue I knew when I chose him that I was making a mistake but I did it any way. I thought that beautiful clothes, fancy houses and servants would be enough. I was wrong. I should have chosen better. I should have chosen the farm with rough sheets, hard work, little money and the only man who not only made me laugh but alos made my heart leap everytime he walked into a room. I should have chosen the man not the wedding.

Kafe

Every day for two years she drank coffee. Never before in her life had she drank so much coffee. She had always been a tea drinker. Hot tea every morning. But for those two years it was coffee. Coffee in the morning, coffee in the afternoon, coffee after dinner. It sometimes seemed the countries entire culture was based on coffee drinking. She met her friends for coffee, she met co-workers for coffee, she took her students for coffee( although they would occasionally try to sneak in a beer instead), she drank coffee after every meal she ate out. And because she was not used to nursing one very small turkish coffee for two hours and since she unlike many of her local friends could afford more she would drink three to their one. So needless to say she became addicted to coffee, addicted to sitting in cafes for hours drinking coffee and talking, addicted to the pleasure of no time constraints, no worries and nowhere to hurry to. Eight years later she still drinks coffee every morning and although she no longer has the luxury of those long leisurely afternoons in the cafe, every time she tastes that warm sweet coffee, she remembers that place, its people and their coffee.