Coffee Talk

"Tell me what is it you plan to do with your one wild & precious life"

- Mary Oliver

That quote speaks to me.  I'm not sure why.  It's on a board by the register at Portland Brew in 12South and I see it every time I stop in for a cup of coffee, like this morning, before work.  I don't know Mary Oliver.  Maybe she is a poet or maybe she's just a regular customer.

Coffee shops are funny and interesting places.  There are a few I frequent regularly - Portland Brew and Honest Coffee Roasters - and others I visit occasionally.  If I go to one enough, I start to recognize the regulars.  Like the older, retired couple that just walked in to Portland Brew - they're psychologists or therapists, I think I overheard them say the other day.  

So many regulars from the old days at Bongo Java - my original home base coffee shop - Bob, Ms. Joyce (who I still see at Portland Brew) and Dave Cloud, the cult hero and underground musician that used to hold court in the afternoon on the front porch at Bongo Java before he died in 2015.  Some - like Ms. Joyce - became my friends.  Others I just nod to and smile on my way in or out.  Some odd balls, to be sure, like the heavyset, long-haired guy who sits at Bongo Java and writes in what appears to be a journal every day.

Here comes another regular at Portland Brew.  The bearded, balding man who dresses the same every day - khaki shorts and a short sleeve button down.  He's always reading library books or, perhaps, grading papers.  I'm guessing he's a professor of some sort but, really, I have no earthly idea.

Other times, when I go to a coffee shop enough, I see friends and we chat over a quick cup of coffee, like Courtney Little (Portland Brew) or Derek Hughey (Bongo Java).  It's always good to get caught up.      

It takes time for me but I tend to become friends with the baristas in my favorite coffee shops.  There's only one leftover at Bongo Java - Nick.  Abby at Creme (a former Bongo Java barista).  EJ, perhaps my all time favorite - at Red Bicycle in West Nashville.  Jacob and the crew at Honest Coffee Roasters are all awesome, although he recently left, along with several other baristas.  Josh and Grant Geersma at Frothy Monkey in 12South.  Always great people, there.  

Coffee shops, I guess, are like neighborhood bars, in many ways.

For me, I think, a coffee shop I frequent is an oasis.  A safe harbor.  A respite - just for a minute - before I begin a busy and often stressful day.  A place for me to recharge my batteries for the day.  A place for me to read, write or, sometimes, just think.  About everything or about nothing.

I spent a lot of mornings at Honest Coffee Roasters, sipping a cup of coffee, thinking about my mom when she was at NHC Place and later, after she died.  That place was a refuge for me, for sure.  Still is, really.  

From Bongo Java in the early days, when JP and, later, Joe, were infants and toddlers, to today, when I dropped both of them off for summer tennis camp at University School (with Jude out of town in Atlanta), at Portland Brew.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.