I just moved. I miss my coffee shop.
I went there for years. I knew the staff, the owner, and where they all lived. I knew the drinks, knew which barristas could make what I wanted the way I liked and which ones I just needed to order something simple from. I knew that the table next to the fountain got the best traffic for socializing, but was the worst place to get work done; I knew that the stool near the abstract sculpture wobbled, but that wobble could be fun if you could make someone sit on it when you talked.
.In my coffee shop, I was a person. I could walk in, sit down with friends, and my drink would appear without being ordered. At the end of the night, I could just walk to the bar and settle a tab--the street cred I had to develop to be able to run a tab was something I committed a lot of social capital to achieve. The owner used to be my landlord, two of the baristas used to be students, three were colleagues, and I went on an (albeit) blind date with another.
It wasn't the cheapest coffee house in town, and it wasn't the they fastest at slinging a cup of joe. It was recently remodeled, but looked like it's only a week away from demolition. When they installed booths I cried a little bit, and when they got rid of that stupid dada painting some freshman art student talked them into putting on the walls I did a jig of glee. But at the end of the day, it was my coffee shop--I knew its nuances and felt more at home there than at my house.
I don't miss the town, the house, and most of the people in it. But I miss my 6:30am double-almond-amaretto-white chocolate-mocha; it's what made 6:30am worth getting up for. sometimes I worry that the shop is a metaphor, and sometimes I worry it's not.