A few weeks ago, we went into the city. Our trip wasn't for anything urgent, but it was planned and more just to move, to breathe, to be around people again. It’s been a slow stretch, pulling out of winter and seeing the sun again as well as the fact of how I was and still am trying to get back into the rhythm of writing. Something, however, about the weather shifting nudged us both out the door.
It's been a struggle between those in-between days. The season is technically spring, but it already feels like summer is rushing in early now, skipping past any polite transition.
We planned on one of my favorite pastimes. A little wander. A little coffee shop I had never been to before.
The shop was one of those corner spots where the windows let in warm light and the air smells like baked sugar and espresso.
There’s something oddly comforting about sitting in a coffee shop, letting the hum of other people’s conversations float between the clatter of glasses being pulled out from the dishwasher. I never try to listen in, not exactly. but the voices at nearby tables naturally float, most of them students from the university down the street.
They spoke in half-sarcastic stress about exams, loud opinions about professors, and that restless energy of people who are still living for these days out, filling them with caffeine and parties and things as much as possible for fear of missing out.
I sat there with my person, both of us relaxed, not needing to fill the silence. We were waiting on friends to join us, but I didn’t mind the pause. It gave me space to observe, to listen to conversation like the ones I often wrote in my own stories, as close to casual and witty as possible. One girl was trying to explain a sociology lecture to someone who clearly didn’t care. A guy was whispering frantically into his phone about a late paper, or maybe it was just a late friend, wondering if he should leave and head back to campus now.
It was chaotic and endearing, all of it, all at once.
I couldn’t help but feel a quiet distance from it all, however, close enough to remember what that phase of life felt like, but far enough to know I’d moved past it. Not in a better than thou way, just... different. Settled in a way I didn’t know I could be back then. I have a lot of things and joys I didn’t think I may ever had back then.
It was one of those rare in-between moments where nothing big is happening, but you’re deeply aware that life is.
Steam curled up from mugs, and a shared calm that somehow exists even when the place is full. Maybe it's the quiet agreement that coffee is type of sacred. We’re all just here for a pause.
A refresh.
A moment of delicious simplicity where for a little while, unless you bring it up in conversation, you really don't have to talk about anything important beyond maybe what pastry you want to try in the case.
I ordered a vanilla latte, and it was perfect. Not too sweet, just enough warmth and fragrance to feel like a small win. We also got a Swedish knot pastry, something I hadn’t had before. It’s a twisty, beautiful swirl of dough layered with cardamom and cinnamon sugar.
The crisp outer shell and a soft, buttery middle. Slightly sticky, lightly spiced, and honestly one of the most interesting and perhaps best pastries I’ve had in a while, mostly because I shared it with someone who doesn't mind me over analyzing the flavor, texture, what have you, so that I can add it to my mental list of best coffee shops. I didn’t know I’d needed that, but I really did.
It wasn’t a big day. But it felt like one.
Sometimes, just being out, watching people, sitting with a warm drink until friends come to join us at our table we were saving, tasting something new, is enough to remind me I’m still here, still curious, still moving and have a story to tell. My own. Even if for now it is a struggle to write more of them on the page.
The writing’s still slow. It still catches in my throat or hesitates on the page. But a little wander always helps. The world still turns. The sun still shows up. And there are lattes and cardamom knots waiting if you go look.
Kind of comforting, if you think about it.
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