An Ode to the Rural Coffee Shop

Travelling while Black and Queer is particularly strange these days, especially in the rural parts of the country. My partner travels a lot for work, and this is the main way we see each other since they live on the West Coast. This time, we're in Charleston, West Virginia where they're training local educators with skills that support the mental health of their students and colleagues. Just a few months ago we were in Shelby, North Carolina for similar work. Shelby and Charleston are similar in so many ways. Both were industry towns—furniture in Shelby and coal in Charleston. Both towns feel as if time stopped in 1999. Large, half empty malls and shopping centers. Main street is anchored by the community's favorite pizza shop, a commercial realtor's office, and a dialysis treatment facility. There is a curious lack of foot traffic even in the center of downtown. Very little children or green space. The most beautiful and beloved buildings are churches.

It's the coffee shops, however, that bring the spirit.

The rural coffee shop is the epitome of counterculture. The Black Lives Matter poster in the window. The pride flag hanging above the door. The colorful furniture inviting you to come in a stay a while, even if all you get is a cup of water or the drip coffee of the day. The local alternative newspapers and culture magazines. Business cards for local makers and service providers. Flyers for clothes swaps, storytimes, and book clubs. And a place where marginalized folks can often find work with dignity, meaning, and commraderie. Honestly, a place where marginalized folks can find each other.

As I awaited my coffee order at the counter today, I watched a man wearing a minister's collar and a delicate pair of dangling crystal earrings. Another man followed shortly after, tall, grey, unremarkable in the most respectful sense. The second man greeted the first, and the first turned to face him and smiled. They shook hands and started up a conversation about the minister's recent move. "Welcome to the neighorhood," the second man said to the first. The lightness I felt in my soul watching the men connect with each other. Neighborliness, right in front of me.

What also dawned on me, as I watched neighbors being neighbors, is how capitalism seeks to control even the most mundane relationships in our lives. Starbucks and Barnes and Noble are corporations with strict branding and marketing determined not by the consumer or the proprietor, but the private equity stacked executive board members. The people at the top know nothing about coffee, or books, or the cities and towns that provide customers to their stores. Indeed, they don't even care. The "third place," a socialogical term that describes a place outside of work and home where people socialize, has been commodified by our market-driven economy. In the late 1990s and early aughts, franchises swept through communities like an invasive weed and choked out thousands of "native" cafes, bookstores, and diners. Franchises have even impacted our churches, whether overly through mega churches absorbing smaller congregations into their "networks," or through the sqeeze of mainstream associations politically motivated regulations. And don't get me started on the franchise coffee shops and bookstores INSIDE churches! It's hard to find places to gather that are owned, led, and operated by our neighbors, and that has an impact on how we socialize and survive our modern world.

Humans are a social creatures. We need each other. And not just the one we give birth, sleep with, or work alongside. Not to get too picky, but it's also nice when you can leave the kids at home and not contend with drunks. Independent coffee shops and bookstores are so special in that they are typically sober spaces that are cater mainly to adults. All communities benefit from these spaces, but rural cafes and bookstores are a thing of beauty. Watching neighborliness at that little cafe in Charleston made me believe that, as long as we keep communing in spaces where we are free to be ourselves, we're all going to be alright.