My blog(s) ha(ve)s seen many reincarnations since I started blogging in 2006. I have gone on hiatuses, changed topics and focus, and names. This title though – coffee and a parking space – has always been my northern light. The one that I always come back to.

For as far back as I can remember my Mom and I have shared more than a typical mother-daughter relationship. Even as a teenager I remember enjoying and spending more time with her than most girls did with their moms. We spent evenings and weekends in bookstores or greasy diners or anywhere that we could relax together and not spend a lot of money.

We would drive loops around one-way streets in Manhattan looking for a parking space so that we could leave the car and escape into a coffee shop for caffeine and one of our chats. Those were perfect evenings. We huddled together whispering, sipping warmth. The fogged cafe windows reduced a city of millions to a room of few and a table of two.

Years later after I had moved away for college, I received a card in the mail from my Mom that reminded me of the simple comfort of those evenings. The front said, “Coffee and a Parking Space” scribbled in red-painted letters. She had left the inside blank, but I knew exactly what it meant. I needed nothing else.

Today, as a Mom to my own kids, I still seek out those simple pleasures to soothe my overloaded mind. I hope to pass that appreciation onto my kids. Life is more complicated than it was during those carefree coffeeshop days with my Mom, but with my simplest needs met, I know everything is okay.