Tag Archives: Coffee

New York

Coffee for a Cause

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I love coffee. Very much. It occupies a very important role in my life, and I wake up every morning excited for the first sip. Drug? I think so.

I am also passionate about helping others, so I was delighted when my friend Emily suggested meeting at The Greenhouse Café for a warm beverage and sandwiches on a rainy day. The Greenhouse Café is a lovely little spot that used to be, as the name suggests, a functioning greenhouse! I didn’t even mind the Christmas decorations . . . too much.

It was a bit chilly to sit in the greenhouse so Emily, my friend Paige, and I actually sat in the back, a much more typical café setting with dining tables, matching chairs, and sturdy walls.

What I really enjoyed about Greenhouse Café, even more than the self-serve refillable coffee and the apple-cheddar panini prepared before my eyes, is that Greenhouse Café is part of Coffee Connection, a local nonprofit that purchases and then sells coffee that is fair trade, organic, and sustainably grown. Purchasing these particular coffee beans supports farmers who are committed to those practices. Coffee Connection then sells the coffee in a number of retail and wholesale establishments, providing jobs and job training in their coffee shops for women recovering from addiction.

That’s what we call a social enterprise and I love it.

It wasn’t until the woman who made our sandwiches and provided the necessary huge coffee mugs mentioned the original Coffee Connection on South Avenue that I realized I’d been there! The coffee is roasted on site at this café so it always smells delicious. There’s also a shop selling artisanal Peruvian goods in the back.

Friends, coffee, positive local and global actions. Works for me!

PS I have a soft spot for all social enterprises and spent a week in Battambang, Cambodia last year exploring a wide variety of them. I particularly love those that support vocational training for women. Check out The Nail Social if you’re ever in Singapore.

New York

Searching for Myself in a Cup of Coffee

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It should come as no secret to the careful reader that I am struggling here in New York. In addition to missing everything about living in Singapore, except for the humidity, I’m finding it very difficult to adjust to being alone, being in a new place, and being back in the US in general.

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View of the West Side from Engineers Gate in Central Park

In an effort to feel more at home in New York, I’ve been spending a lot of time in cafés to read, write, and people watch. Coffee makes everything better, and usually so does being a quiet observer among strangers. Having a legitimate reason to look around makes me feel like I’m part of something bigger than myself, which is an important shift in perspective when I get too stuck in my own head.

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I think I’m mostly doing what that cat is doing. Watching and waiting.

A good deal of my coffee drinking has been at B Cup Café. As I’ve written before, it’s really close to my apartment and plays great music. It also serves good coffee and excellent shakshuka. I’ve been there at least four times, which practically makes me a regular. Based on my own habits, anyway.

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However, I’m bad at sitting at the best of times and caffeine doesn’t help. So I’ve also been wandering around the East Village and taking pictures of everything colorful in an effort to improve my mood and general outlook. That’s a thing, right? Color therapy? I’m not sure if it’s working but I did find some delightful street art:

The East Village is enjoyably quirky in a number of other ways, too. Examples:

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The most exciting part of my wandering today was green space! Neighborhood parks are so important in building community, and seeing them always makes me happy. More than a few parks have started decorating for Halloween, too. I passed by one of those today, as well as a couple parks that aren’t quite on the decorating bandwagon (yet?):

Perhaps unsurprisingly, much of my reading and writing (including this blog post) has taken place at cafés. I’m at Think Coffee at the moment, not because I actually wanted the coffee but because I’m also not good at being home for more than a few hours at any one point during the day. Again, I tend to spend too much time in my own head that way. I do a heck of a lot better at work, which often makes me feel more comfortable than I do during the weekends. (I know. I know, I know. Famous last words.)

I realize I’ve been saying “I’m not good at” fairly often lately. Maybe that’s part of the problem at this point. I don’t know anymore what I am good at. Learning. I guess I’m good at that. At least, I try to be.

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A little light reading, courtesy of the New York Public Library. Croissant sandwich and coffee from Petite Shell on the Upper East Side.

If you’re looking for me, I’m probably in a coffee shop. If not, chances are I will be soon. I always take my coffee black. Thanks for asking!

 

On My Mind

Rainy Sunday

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Today is cold, gray, and wet. I bundled up in my navy raincoat, plaid scarf, and flowered Doc Martens I’ve had since college and I was still cold. The air was full of the dampness that goes straight to the bones. After two years in Southeast Asia, I’m not so good at damp or cold. That’s going to take some practice. Nothing like trial by fire, right? (Except in this case it’s trial by rain.)

Today is also lonely. I woke up knowing I would spend the day by myself, which is fine when that’s what I want to do. When I want to be around people, engage in meaningful conversation, and share myself with others I find it very difficult to be in own company. That’s the kind of feeling I had today when I woke up, which took me by surprise because I spent almost all of yesterday with a friend.

I fought the urge to cuddle back underneath the sheets when my alarm went off just to shorten the amount of time I’d have to spend alone. But I’ve been down this road before so I know better than that. I forced myself out of bed and outside for a quick, cold, wet run. Did yoga to return some heat to my joints. Left the house.

That’s key. Leave the house. It’s easy to get trapped in a cycle of rumination and distasteful self-pity when alone in my apartment. When I’m out, even when I’m out by myself, there are people to watch, conversations to overhear, places to go.

Made my way to the library to pick up George Orwell’s 1984. I’ve never read it and although I’m in the middle of two other books right now (What Kind of Creatures Are We? by Noam Chomsky and How Happy Became Homosexual by Howard Richler) today felt like a “curl up with a novel” sort of day. That’s something I’m always happy to do alone.

And by alone I mean in the company of strangers and a cup of coffee at B Cup Café in the East Village.

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I certainly wasn’t the only one waiting out the rain with a hot beverage!

The music, atmosphere, and food options were good enough for me to order a second coffee and a breakfast wrap for lunch. Breakfast is delicious at all times of day.

That’s when I ran into the problem of what to do next. There’s only so much caffeine one can drink in a day. And I’m bad at sitting.

So I headed home. Stopped at the farmers’ market to pick up some things on the way. Put on Bon Iver’s new album (again). Thought about all the times over the past 12 months that I’d been lonely and told myself all that would end when I moved to New York.

Thought about how wrong I was.

On the bright side, I’ve had a lot of time to think. Time that I desperately needed. I don’t know whether I’m in a better place now than I was in August, but I do know that I’m in a different place. That’s definitely a step in the right direction, though I don’t know what direction that is.

Maybe this time alone will help me figure it out.