Grinding Black Coffee
By Jodi, Year 10
I know I’m home. My heart, mind and soul is at peace.
The bedroom is tinted in a warm yellow from the swaying curtains blocking the scorching sun. I hear the noisy fan on the wall moving side to side barely doing its job to keep me cool. I look beside me and see my cousin still fast asleep with her body contorted; as if she’s possessed but I know she’s comfortable.
I see the cat I befriended beside my window bathing in the sun.
I’m observing everything that’s around me as if it will slip away from the palm of my hands in just a second.
It’s hard to comprehend I’m home.
I pinch myself in disbelief; there’s a purple bruise on my arm from the amount of times I’ve pinched myself since coming home last night. While pinching myself, a strong smell begins flooding the bedroom.
Strong, bitter and addictive, the drug of an Arab.
Black coffee, the way to start a morning.
Though for me, it’s the way to know I’m home, I’m loved and I’m not dreaming.
My grandparents home in Jordan; where my heart is tied and the strong smell of Arabic coffee grounds me, tells me I’m finally home.
This vignette, Grinding Black Coffee by Jodi, was created in Olfactory. Olfactory is a workshop series where students learn about features of discursive writing. They create a series of short responses or segments that will accumulate to become a personal essay about the olfactory world. Students survey their peers as to what is the most ‘puke-worthy’ smell. They develop their very own ‘personality perfume’. Students reflect on and share their personal connections to the world of smells, odours and fragrances. Lynx Africa, anyone? Student will learn about and employ such features as anecdotes, figurative language, factoids, allusion and anaphora.