Spinning a Little Too Fast, and I

¶ … spinning a little too fast, and I need to get away, I usually head to the small coffee shop that is only about two blocks away from my house. It is a no-name shop, not one of your cookie-cutter conglomerate shops which you can find on any corner in any city in any country of the world. My shop is small, run by two sisters who share the work part time. On the outside it is unimpressive -- a regular storefront in a 1970s era strip mall. The windows are covered with sticky see through vinyl which lets some light in but keeps the world from peering in at the regulars who hold up inside.

As I enter the shop, I am at first assaulted with the delicious aroma of fresh brewed coffee. While this shop offers the typical "double-tall-non-fat-half-decaf" specialty drinks we all know and love, the two sisters also keep several different types of regular drip brew around all the time, for the hard-core who like their coffee black and bitter. The smell is a mixture of Arabica beans, Colombian blend and Sumatran with a hint of Oriental Chai mixed in. If you go early enough in the morning, the smell of the baked goods that come in from a nearby bakery are mixed in with the coffee smells, and it is enough to make your mouth water. The shop is mostly in the semi-dark. There are a large number of recessed lights in the ceiling, but the owners deliberately keep it a little dimmer than usual in there, knowing that the regulars come in as much to ease themselves into another day with the delicious fluid as they do the atmosphere. Sometimes, a girl with a pierced lip works behind the counter, and adds her own aroma of patchouli and mint gum into the mix. Distracting, but somehow it works in this unconventional setting.

The shop is small, maybe about 90 square meters total. There are a few tables with marble-esque tops and some bent wood chairs that would look more at home in an ice cream parlor than in this store. I usually head to one of the large, shabby chairs that are scattered around and throughout the customer area. Refugees from Goodwill and garage sales, they are clean but carry their own history of smells and are broken down in all the right places from a lifetime of buttocks. To sit in these chairs is a misnomer. I sink into one and feel as though I am a small child sitting in his father's chair, as the relaxed springs lift my legs up and sometimes away from the floor. The armrests hit just exactly right and I feel a wave of comfort and security when I rest there.

Each chair has one or two small side tables nearby, none from the same era or style but each one in a dark wood and scarred with old watermarks and even some cigarette burns, although smoking in the shop is strictly prohibited. These marks give the tables a sense of dignity -- they are old warriors come to rest in a quiet and safe place, living out their days as a home to magazines and coffee mugs and the odd scone. As I look around me, I see an eclectic mix of books and magazines free to the reader but don't take them home. Based on my whim, I can see the latest fashions from Milan, read about the NASCAR standings, gauge the stock market or simply peruse the latest gossip about Britney and Jessica. A full set of the Encyclopedia Britannica from 1967 fills a bookshelf, and I can amuse myself at anytime reading about the exploits of Captain Cook or the reproductive cycle of frogs. The magazines are always changing, the books are always the same, giving a sense of constancy and change which keep the karma of the shop in balance.

I am such a regular; I no longer have to order but am usually brought a cup of the usual. I eschew the fancier (and pricier) drinks for a large mug of a dark Sumatran Blend, no cream, please. I sip the coffee slowly, partly out of caution as the brew is always piping hot and freshly brewed, and partly as there is no hurry. I never come to my shop if I need to hurry. The coffee is bitter, but not excessively so, but also rich and full bodied -- everything Folgers wants to be and cannot. If I am feeling peckish, I may ask for a blueberry scone, and the pierced girl heats it in the small toaster oven for me if I ask her to. There are no microwaves in this shop. It wouldn't be fitting.