I opened my eyes to a truly damp, dismal morning- one of my favorite kinds (blame the British heritage). Cocooned in fluffy white duvet, I let myself begin to slip back towards sleep, smelling the rain on the pavement outside and listening to it patter at the glass behind the roman blinds while my boyfriend snored quietly. My eyes snapped open as I remembered- today was the day. We’d been talking about it for months, had made plan after plan only to have them all fall through or be buried under more pressing obligations. But today. Today we were going to make it happen- we were going to find the “best cup of coffee in New York City.” After consulting the internet, Luis announced that it was hiding at the Extraction Lab by Alpha Dominche.
We swept through our morning errands and odd jobs, gunning for the 3 hour slot we both had free later in the day. Bundled in anticipation and artfully dishevelled leather jackets, the Lyft ride there seemed to stretch on endlessly (and the touch and go traffic was no friend to the chronically carsick). But when we walked in, I was struck by how quiet it was. Granted, it’s tucked away in Industry City, but I expected the home of coffee this supposedly phenomenal to be, at the very least, less serene.
As a self-proclaimed authority on haunting hipster coffee shops and a recent VCUArts graduate, I have a hunch the space is what all RVA coffee spots aspire to be. The clean white walls were dressed in what have to be Restoration Hardware shelves dotted with succulents, books about the art of coffee, small beakers, and dainty test tubes. Science, irony, and minimalism all came together to form a space that screamed “wear a flannel shirt tied around your waist.”
This carried over to the no-nonsense coffee selection. You can choose your blend- but all of the coffee is served black. I briefly (wistfully) thought of a soy cappuccino, before I realized my coffee was being brewed in what looked like a french press melded into my high school chemistry set and that I could watch the process. And then (while there is a decent bit of novelty in being served a hand-crafted coffee steaming away in a science beaker), I think we were both a little disappointed. The coffee was fantastic- don’t get me wrong but, well, it was only coffee. We’d spent so long working up expectations of an existence-altering caffeinated experience that in hindsight, we were inevitably going to be underwhelmed.
My usual rule is that I never let myself get really excited about anything. That sounds very sad and bland when I put it on paper, but it always leaves room for me to be pleasantly surprised. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with getting super excited about things, in fact I think it’s wonderful. But is that buzz of expectant suspense worth the risk of ruining the experience? Ruining is a rather strong word, but at the end of the day we should never have expected anything more than a cup of joe and a decent caffeine kick. As I sat there head-bopping along to the mellow indie-rock they have playing, I couldn’t help but come back to a conversation my boyfriend and I had the other day. Granted, it was about people not coffee- but I think the concept still applies.
When we have a falling out with another person because “they aren’t who we thought they were,” we’re usually really more upset by the dissonance than by whatever words or actions that we’re pinning our hurt and anger on. How dare this person not fit into the box that I had so neatly placed them in? It’s important to remember to take stuff at face value, instead of convincing ourselves that it’s what we want it to be. It’s a bad habit I often catch myself in- I’ve already decided what will be before it's actually happened. But we can’t just love [people and experiences] in a way that fits nicely into our lives.
That was a hard lesson for me to learn- and it makes a world of difference. If you place yourself onto others you’ll never see them properly. When you take it all (the good with the bad with the seriously what the hell) and let them be and love them for it, it's magic. It’s easy to only think of others in relation to yourself, but if you can shake the habit they will be all the more beautiful for it. I’m rambling a little, but what I’m trying to get at is that you can’t plan experiences any more than you can plan people.
How often have you let the “think it should be” ruin the “actually is?” Because I know that’s something I’m still working on. I hate feeling powerless so I compensate by needing to feel in control of everything, all the time. It’s been like that since I was small- I needed a plan and then for everything to go accordingly; but I guess today was a reminder of that. You can’t force life into what you think it should be, but you can enjoy the hell out of what it actually is.