The Haunting of the Cold Coffee

It finally happened this morning.

The thermometer on my back porch read sixty-two degrees. To folks up north, sixty-two is barely a reason to shut a window. But for me, living here in North Texas where the afternoons were blazing past one hundred degrees just two weeks ago, that sudden forty-degree plunge hit like a physical shock to my system. It sent an honest-to-goodness chill straight through my bones.

Naturally, I dug out my light cardigan, hunted down my slippers, and set the coffee pot to work.

Now, I have an old, complicated history with coffee temperature. Truth be told, I haven’t expected a truly hot cup of coffee in decades. Not since the day I had my child. I learned the universal truth of motherhood early: the second I poured a fresh, steaming mug, little feet hit the floor, someone needed breakfast, a crisis required my immediate handling, and by the time I finally sat down, the steam was long gone. Motherhood trained me well. Over the years, I made peace with the chill. During the brutal Texas summers, I lean into it completely and drink it exclusively poured over ice.

Yet on a cool(er) October morning like this, I still crave the ritual. I brewed it piping hot just so I could wrap both cold hands around the ceramic warmth, breathe in that rich dark roast, and sit down on the patio with a good book and a blank page waiting for ink.

“Just one chapter,” I told myself. “Just a few sentences before the day wakes up.”

And that was the exact moment the ghost showed up.

Because when I finally looked up from the page, forty-five minutes had vanished into thin air. The coffee was stone-cold. And, no, I couldn’t blame my kid.

The Supernatural Disappearance of Time

Since it’s October, my thoughts naturally drift toward classic ghost stories. I notice the Halloween candy in the stores, find myself browsing spooky movie lists, and keep an eye on dark stairwells. But as someone who loves to read and write, I already know about the very real, documented hauntings that happen right in the middle of a sunlit morning.

There is a quiet spirit that lives inside a truly captivating story.

It slips in through the margins the moment a sentence catches my imagination. It doesn’t rattle chains or slam doors; instead, it quietly suspends the entire universe around me. My ticking wall clock fades to a distant murmur. My morning to-do list completely evaporates. The world outside ceases to exist.

I’m no longer sitting on my patio in Texas. I’m walking cobblestone alleys in another century, unraveling an impossible secret, or holding my breath alongside characters who feel as alive to me as my closest neighbors.

When a story is doing what it was created to do, it takes hold of me completely.

A Badge of Honor in a Mug

Most people get annoyed when they let a drink go cold. They sigh, march over to the microwave, hit the thirty-second button, and scold themselves for losing track of time.

I just don’t look at it that way anymore.

Maybe it’s because years of mom-life taught me to accept cold coffee with grace, but on an autumn morning, that half-empty mug feels less like an accident and more like tangible evidence of a marvelous journey.

In a fast-paced world that constantly tries to fracture our focus into ten-second bites, finding something that grabs my attention so deeply that I forget to lift the cup sitting in my own hand feels like a quiet miracle. Whether I’m writing the words or losing myself in someone else’s, being swept away by a story is one of life’s great, enduring pleasures.

Welcoming the Chill

So this October, here is my invitation to you:

Pour a generous cup of whatever keeps you going—piping hot, reheated twice, or poured over ice. Pull a thick sweater tight against the morning chill, find a quiet chair in the light, and open the page.

Give yourself full permission to disappear for a little while. Let the notifications wait. Let the day’s demands pause just outside the door, and take a long, deep breath.

And if you finally look up, realize the clock mysteriously jumped an hour, and take a sip of room-temperature coffee? Smile. Some hauntings are worth every cold drop.