Coffee as An Excuse

On Sunday mornings--almost always--Mari and I stay home, make a pot of really good coffee (just coffee: no sugar, no cream) and read three newspapers. Annic Cat strolls by when whis is not lying where she can see us. She is family, too!

On most other days, we meet friends at the Nokomis Beach Coffee Cafe. On most days, there are up to a half-dozen of us at a couple of tables nudged together, as we nudge together. We are not really alone. All around, we reliably expect to see other regulars who stop on their way to work; paid or unpaid work. We call across the room.

Saturdays are special. On Saturdays, when the demands for work schedules are easier, we sometimes pull still another table up, and make it more of a party; more of a neighborhood.

But it is the everyday stuff that holds us together. Everydays, we expect to be expected as we come through the door, sometimes with an honest cheer, and sometimes with a dishonest insult.

Why do we come? For a lot of reasons: friendship, habit, a book to borrow or to return. Lots of things. But mostly, we come because we want to talk to really interesting people who have been reading books and newspapers, who have been listening to politicians and evaluating them, who care, and debate, and who think.

We come for ideas. We have things on our minds, and we expect to be contradicted. Our expectations are always met. And our minds are changed, or if not changed, exercised.

None of it would work if the people were not good people. Often, Mari and I remind each other of what we already know: those are some of the best people we know!

A good coffee shop is not necessarily about coffee. A good coffee shop is an opportunity.

Comments

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