Starbucks Kind of Life
what are we here for, anyway?
Mike takes this picture of us on Black Friday at, as he put it, 0615. (I brought my coffee, he says)
I know, I know. I ask this all the time. What’s the point? What are we here for? what am I here for? I know what it is like to be enough. But how does one make life enough, now?
I am in Kunjani Coffee, Sunday, the kind of place with cozy chairs and welcoming walls. I need to go to Costco but I must gear myself up, first. And I overhear a conversation so interesting I want to join in, though I don’t.1 When I tune in, a man is talking about his friend, who if I hear him correctly, either works for Starbucks or is about to - at a high, decision-making level. And the man says this:
“Starbucks is just for driving through, now.”
You used to meet people there, he says. And the woman he is with agrees with him. She meets people at Fika or Kunjani now. Is, in fact, meeting him at Kunjani right now.
This man has put his finger on something so true that I am struck by it. I think of my many memories of how it used to be. My neighborhood one by King Soopers, dark and cozy, is gone now, replaced by a bright, sterile drive through location across the street. When the change is made I think my sadness is mostly because it was a place I existed with my husband. Where Mike complained about how Starbucks always burned the beans. He stood in line with me anyway though he preferred the gas station coffee. But it isn’t really just that, I realize. After Mike died I used to leave for work at my former job that I couldn’t stand, and sit for just a few minutes sipping my latte in a worn armchair by the window. Putting off leaving for as long as I could, not wanting to go to work. Wanting to be in Starbucks.
The transformation in the Sixteenth Street Starbucks is striking, even though the same location is still open. Same location, gutted and now devoid of character. Almost all the seating is removed and there is a sign on the door making it clear that they don’t want you to enter if you are not buying coffee or linger if you are. There are counters for you to stand at. I used to sit at a table there and FaceTime Mike on my iPad when I forgot my phone, sometimes. I used to walk in and hear my husband’s voice.
Starbucks does not want you to stay now. They want you to get your coffee and get out of the way. You see people working there sometimes, still, though the atmosphere does not feel inspirational. I drive much further down the road to write where they don’t mind if I stay. A place where neighbors meet, couples have coffee dates, and people hold Bible studies sometimes.
I don’t interrupt the couple, don’t tell them about Sixteenth Street. Don’t tell the man how right is. But I think about it all week. Starbucks, making money certainly. More, maybe, but at what cost? What are they here for? Not for a customer experience, that’s for sure.
On Wednesday, I am looking for a witch hat downtown. Will they have one at Whole Foods, maybe? I don’t know why I even think that, because of course they don’t. But I walk in, anyway. My grief almost feels like an assault. I am not here often, probably avoid it if I am being honest. It is close to my old firm and Mike is everywhere in there for me. Me calling him and losing signal. Asking if he wants me to bring home some bread. Taking a picture of a strange vegetable (What is this?). Taking pictures right outside, trying to get a good one for my firm profile and email - I do this just weeks before Mike dies. “Which one is best, honey?” I leave after a few moments, tears in my eyes and predictably without a witch hat.
Walking back to the office, I see the Sixteenth Street Starbucks with its borderline hostile sign on the door. I think “Starbucks is just for driving through, now.” And I realize that I might not know why I am here all the time, or what the point is, but I know what the point is not. I am not here to drive through.
I am not here to earn money, pay taxes on that money, or spend money. I am not here to introduce a new, interchangeable man in the walk-on role of husband or boyfriend. My husband is not interchangeable. My life is not some ruthlessly efficient, sterile, drive through experience. It is messy, and human. I get to feel, and live on my own terms. I get to feel sad in Whole Foods, sometimes.
I get to walk down Sixteenth Street later with a green face (still no hat). But it is October 30, a perfectly respectable time to have a green face. As people stare, I think of telling Mike about dressing Like Belle in Cherry Creek Mall in 2014. People stare at you, I say.
the paint is from 2018, but I make it work
My husband tells me he would have stared, and more than stared. He would have had the confidence to hit on me. He puts this is his terms, not mine, and is quite certain of his hypothetical 2014 success, though I didn’t meet him for another three and a half months.
I don’t have all the answers about what my life is, but deciding what it is not is at least a start. And I know one of the answers:
I am here to feel.
With or without my laptop, if I overhear you I might write about you. Sorry not sorry.