American coffee shops: perhaps the most frustrating, least used, yet
most useful therapists around.
By
Imagine that it is August and you’ve just peeled yourself off–hot as a fish stick–
from the sands of South Beach in Edgartown. You’re more dehydrated than usual
and alcohol, the tempting little fiend, won’t convince you to capitulate to its
whim. Iced tea? Water? Lemonade? I’m at Mocha Motts, drinking coffee.
Hot. Coffee. Which is quite good, really.
To the Dutch, it is a truism that drinking a hot beverage on a hotter day
will cool you off faster than drinking something on ice–a janitor from North
Carolina told me so. It was over 90 degrees in Maastricht when he gulped down
his three ounces of coffee and went about the rest of his day. I remained at the
café we were sitting at in the city square and on principle ordered another cold
beer. Blasphemer.
For some time I’ve been turning over the idea in my head that coffee shops
are the loudest places in the world. In Europe, they are the product of the
Enlightenment, a time when radical ideas were once passed around as quickly as
one could think of them. In the Middle East they are a place to escape the sun and
chat amongst friends. Here in America, they are for pairs to spend their lunch
hour or for old and new friends to catch up and spend time together.
These are, of course, puppy dog descriptions of cafés at their sappiest.
Nowadays, a brasserie in France will more than likely be filled with drunkards
and scratch card addicts. Many cafés in the Islamic world will not serve women
without a man in their group. In America, most people grab their coffee and go,
never thinking of their drink as anything more than a beverage. And if you can
understand the language around you, odds are you will hear some very obnoxious
opinions.
Because at least in America, coffee shops have become yachts for
bohemians. It’s an interesting phenomenon, really. And like most things in life,
the situation is never as black and white as we might think.
I know all this from years of astute observation in cafés around the
country. They are the places where I sit and think for an hour or so each day. I
piece together my thoughts from the previous day and in my head begin to
compose these silly little thought pieces. It’s relaxing. I watch people walk by and
I peer into the cars that drive past me and generally listen to what is happening
around me.
Always, I will hear one voice soaring above the rest of the din. Fortunately,
the voice is never boring. For better or worse, it talks of interesting albeit useless
drivel: the green benefits of washing one’s denim only once a month; summaries
of enlightenment gleaned from a week’s vacation in Barcelona (we hate America
now); and, of course, general teenage angst. Like yacht owners, the purpose of
these conversations is not for yourself or your company to enjoy privately, these
discussions exist so that everyone else within earshot can hear them. Each after
the next, another bohemian screeches louder, more bombastic claims than the
other in direct relation to the way in which the sizes of yachts grow every year.
Now hold on (you, reader, are thinking). That may be true of some, but not
all. What about you, author, who sits in silence or with a partner and speaks at an
appropriate volume and about the most mundane of topics?
Well, of course. The other side of the coin is that cafés are mostly filled
with these types. The silent ones reading, drawing in the corner of the room.
There are the ones who are studying for a test. And those who are simply chatting
with an old, or new, friend. Some of them are open to interruption, indeed, they
would like to be asked what they’re doing. Others have some perverse notion of
privacy in public that is somewhat related to the whole yacht thing (see Tiger
Woods’ boat Privacy) but I’m not overly concerned with confronting that here.
The point is not to get upset or overly enamored with either group, but to watch
them. It’s sport for inquisitive types. And good for the mind. Eavesdropping on
rather colorful conversations–especially in a tourist’s haven like Martha’s
Vineyard–provides a bevy of worldly anecdotes and insights.
The best advice I ever received came from a professor of mine who told me
that when you are abroad, the best thing to do is to make yourself a fixture at a
café. Sit there every day. Read the newspaper. Eventually, someone will either
take enough interest –or pity–in you to strike up a conversation. I’ve met some
odd people doing this, but I’ve also made some extraordinary friends. I’ve heard
things that I wish I hadn’t, and some that I will remember forever. And as I sit
here on a summer afternoon in Vineyard Haven, my hot coffee has become cold
and it is time for a refill. It does work, you know.
