Coffeehouses.
I used to frequent coffeehouses.
I love coffee and I love the atmosphere.
The background of sound is just enough to keep one alert, yet doesn’t overwhelm the senses or distract too much. The aroma of coffees roasted and brewed, the taste of a good cup, the patrons darting in and out, or planted for the time being at the other tables and chairs, the sounds of espresso brewing and milk steaming along with the hustle of the baristas all form a delightful mosaic of the senses.
I do love a good coffeehouse.
But it has been quite awhile since I sat in one for any decent length of time, let alone all day.
And there are good reasons for this, some better than others.
For the last several years I’ve been working for a propane company, and that makes me, at least a little bit, a gas man. And gas men are blue collar, hands dirty kinds of people. And in my limited experience blue collar people tend to like blue collar coffee. And one doesn’t find much of that in a coffeehouse. Gas stations, diners and church basements, yes, but coffeehouses, no. You start talking about espresso and Americano and such and they think your speaking Spanish.
A grinder is for prepping metal not beans and filters are made by Fram not Melita.
Now granted I’ve got an office now, and its not the first time I’ve had one so I’m not really blue collar, but thats the kind of folk I live and work with these days.
People here are either working too hard and too much to sit around sipping coffee (unless retired) or living on assistance and too poor to afford good coffee anyhow.
Right now I live in a rural Appalachian community in the southern part of Ohio. The nearest bookstore stocked with more books than junk is a good hour away. The closest coffeehouse that doesn’t pull double duty as a diner and/or a bar is as just about as far. And thats just a Starbucks. In Kentucky. Or West Virginia
(Cue the banjo)
Its just not that kind of place. Although its changing, slowly.
Factories dying and hospitals and colleges growing.
Urban decay and rural neglect intersecting in the post industrial rust belt.
I’m not from here, but over the years it has become home.
And sometimes I think that this home is on its way to ruin.
I used to go to coffeehouses to get work done, to read, to study or to relax.
Espresso in one hand, MacBook in front focused on the glowing screen.
Or, cappuccino in one hand, book in the other caught up in the ink on paper.
Or frappé in one hand and listening and watching the people around me going about their day.
Then I met the love of my life and we would often go to coffeehouses together.
Each of us espressos in hand, MacBooks in front, talking and not conversing, which is a poor way to relate.
Or, cappuccinos in one hand, books in another both far away in separate worlds.
Another poor way to relate.
Bridging culture and language divides with someone from almost literally the other side of the world means focusing and resisting distractions, even more than the “usual” challenge of joining lives.
We could go to coffeehouses for conversation and coffee, but we needed to be present with each other not mentally someplace else.
Coffeehouses are usually calm.
Toddlers are usually not.
The two do not mix well.
Since our little girl came into the world, coffeehouses have mostly faded into memory. People in coffeehouses mostly want to do there on thing with out being accosted by sub-30 inch tall humans, running and climbing and playing and screaming (sometimes)
And its hard to relax when you are wondering what ceramic thing will go flying next.
So we’ve become Chick-fil-a people. (Even though its a forty-five minutes away)
We’ll come back to the coffeehouse when our darling girl’s in college, I guess. That’ll be something like year 2027 or so.
Joulla’s. Ah, Joulla’s. The last coffee shop I frequented with any regularity.
(If you don’t count donut shops like Dunkin’ or J.co)
I haven’t been there in years it seems.
And that almost breaks my heart.
Not because its such a good coffee shop. (though it was)
Because, it, like J.co, is in Indonesia.
And Indonesia won my heart even before Helen did.
God has led me to love that land and its peoples and I can’t wait to go back.
Not for coffeehouses, though I’ll surely find a good one in Jakarta one day, but for the calling, the mission, the fulfillment of what I, Helen, Abigail and the little one to come have been made for.
What all of us have been made for .
That God would be glorified by all people, everywhere.
