Calvin Fletcher's
Calvin Fletcher's Coffee Company has a sort of run down, church basement, hipster DIY appeal—black sharpie letters on cardboard signs tell you where to put your dirty dishes, local art covers the walls (this week it's overly green landscapes—trees and lily pads and fields done in a bright, art-school-student style), bookshelves with gold stenciled triangles break the room into sitting nooks, advertisements for yoga and poetry readings and the League of Latte competition cover the sides of the counter, a magic marker sign details the drink of the moment (some white chocolate raspberry concoction with cinnamon-infused milk that sounds heavenly). The baristas, no matter who's working, immediately convey kindness and friendliness, and look exactly like you'd expect baristas in Indy's Fountain Square area to look: skinny jeans, flannel, cardigans, green hair, clothes either really too tight or really too loose for convention. It's easy to romanticize them as the kind of person I sometimes wish I was—cool and artsy and alternative and not in the corporate, white bread system.
This is where we meet every week to write. If we're lucky we get one of the areas up front with comfy chairs, with easy access to plugs. If we're not lucky, we're stuck at one of the two-seat tables, or worse, the high top two-seats, which are just the wrong height to be comfortable.
Today I lucked out and snagged the comfy seats. As I wait for Sarah I look around me, trying to slow down my brain and forget the three projects that just dropped into my email. It's been more of a struggle than normal to get myself into a writing place lately, and more often than not I just give up. But I'm determined to not give up today.
There's always an interesting mix of people in Calvin Fletcher's. Across the room from me is a guy all in black, with thin legs encased in black denim and a gold necklace that makes him look vaguely European. He's on the phone with someone, an earbud emerging from one side of his shoulder-length, black wavy hair. Something about the way he twirls the headphone cord in his fingers and smiles makes me think he's talking to a lover. ("Lover," such a dramatic word.)
To the right is a girl wearing a grey oversized sweatshirt, jeans, and moccasins, her hair messy and dreaded, pulled somewhat off her face with a bandana and a long, 3-inch wooden triangle dangling from one ear. She's reading a book, an old-fashioned paperback.
Then we've got the woman in mom jeans and a white fleece at the next table, just about the closest to an opposite (on the surface) from the dreaded hipster as you can get. She's on the phone and wearing pale pink Crocs, her blond hair short and pulled back for convenience. She leans over the table as she talks on the phone, laughing and unaware of the 33-year old wannabe writer judging her.
A 50-year old business man in glasses with his laptop, a jock in a trucker hat, a student working on homework. In walks a beautiful, slender, dark woman with a mohawk. She sits to talk to one of the baristas who's on a break and the other barista brings her a coffee without asking.
I love a good coffee shop, and this one has become familiar. Over the last two years I've worked in coffee shops in Indy, in Cincinnati, in Columbus, in New York. My brother and I stopped in a local coffee shop in Marion, Indiana on our way to the hospital the day before Grandma died—a paper cup of coffee in your hand cuts the edge of anxiety. My standard coffee shop in Cincinnati is 1215, where I experienced totally disproportionate joy the day the barista asked if I wanted "my usual;" my standard coffee shop at home is just a boring old Starbucks, but one 5 minutes from our house with cushy chairs and lots of nooks to sit and work in.
It's weird to think that I used to not drink coffee. If I added up how much money I've spent on coffee in the last 3-5 years I'd probably be appalled, but can you put a price on the joy of the perfectly foamy latte? You can, and it's a price I'm willing to pay.
But what's more is that coffee shops seem to represent an experience to me. The same thing happens in wineries, in restaurants, in traveling and visiting museums or seeing plays. In a coffee shop you immerse yourself in the day-to-day feel of that place—the people coming in and out are the regulars, the visitors, the people working for themselves, the friends catching up, the two businessmen or women networking. You're out amongst the crowd but, in my case, also safe behind your computer screen, with a project to get done or words to put together.
So the price of the expensive fancy pants drinks is worth it for me, even if it's just to be a part of the constantly revolving crowd, to be out there amidts the clink of coffee mugs and whir of the espresso machines.
This is where we meet every week to write. If we're lucky we get one of the areas up front with comfy chairs, with easy access to plugs. If we're not lucky, we're stuck at one of the two-seat tables, or worse, the high top two-seats, which are just the wrong height to be comfortable.
Today I lucked out and snagged the comfy seats. As I wait for Sarah I look around me, trying to slow down my brain and forget the three projects that just dropped into my email. It's been more of a struggle than normal to get myself into a writing place lately, and more often than not I just give up. But I'm determined to not give up today.
There's always an interesting mix of people in Calvin Fletcher's. Across the room from me is a guy all in black, with thin legs encased in black denim and a gold necklace that makes him look vaguely European. He's on the phone with someone, an earbud emerging from one side of his shoulder-length, black wavy hair. Something about the way he twirls the headphone cord in his fingers and smiles makes me think he's talking to a lover. ("Lover," such a dramatic word.)
To the right is a girl wearing a grey oversized sweatshirt, jeans, and moccasins, her hair messy and dreaded, pulled somewhat off her face with a bandana and a long, 3-inch wooden triangle dangling from one ear. She's reading a book, an old-fashioned paperback.
Then we've got the woman in mom jeans and a white fleece at the next table, just about the closest to an opposite (on the surface) from the dreaded hipster as you can get. She's on the phone and wearing pale pink Crocs, her blond hair short and pulled back for convenience. She leans over the table as she talks on the phone, laughing and unaware of the 33-year old wannabe writer judging her.
A 50-year old business man in glasses with his laptop, a jock in a trucker hat, a student working on homework. In walks a beautiful, slender, dark woman with a mohawk. She sits to talk to one of the baristas who's on a break and the other barista brings her a coffee without asking.
I love a good coffee shop, and this one has become familiar. Over the last two years I've worked in coffee shops in Indy, in Cincinnati, in Columbus, in New York. My brother and I stopped in a local coffee shop in Marion, Indiana on our way to the hospital the day before Grandma died—a paper cup of coffee in your hand cuts the edge of anxiety. My standard coffee shop in Cincinnati is 1215, where I experienced totally disproportionate joy the day the barista asked if I wanted "my usual;" my standard coffee shop at home is just a boring old Starbucks, but one 5 minutes from our house with cushy chairs and lots of nooks to sit and work in.
It's weird to think that I used to not drink coffee. If I added up how much money I've spent on coffee in the last 3-5 years I'd probably be appalled, but can you put a price on the joy of the perfectly foamy latte? You can, and it's a price I'm willing to pay.
But what's more is that coffee shops seem to represent an experience to me. The same thing happens in wineries, in restaurants, in traveling and visiting museums or seeing plays. In a coffee shop you immerse yourself in the day-to-day feel of that place—the people coming in and out are the regulars, the visitors, the people working for themselves, the friends catching up, the two businessmen or women networking. You're out amongst the crowd but, in my case, also safe behind your computer screen, with a project to get done or words to put together.
So the price of the expensive fancy pants drinks is worth it for me, even if it's just to be a part of the constantly revolving crowd, to be out there amidts the clink of coffee mugs and whir of the espresso machines.