It’s Hard Work, But Somebody’s Gotta Do It
For as long as I can remember, I’ve associated adulthood with what I saw as the sophisticated “work” of grown-ups in Yellow Springs. I’m referring of course to the task of populating our multiple coffee shops, sipping black coffee (or at the very least, with cream-no-sugar-thank-you-very-much), discussing village politics and events or philosophy and eastern religions. Having a laptop or a copy of the YS News or NY Time helps becauser it’s important to look occupied without looking too very busy to be caught up in a conversation with another villager. Grown-ups in Yellow Springs always seem to know what to order from secret, unposted menus, and they sit back in their seats with an ease that ensures that they won’t be mistaken for a tourist.
This weekend is a particularly lively one in the village because it’s Antioch reunion weekend, especially significant and joyous this year in light of Antioch College’s newly earned independence. Former students are arriving in Yellow Springs today, and familiar but nameless faces, ones I’ve seen sitting on benches or walking through campus or shopping at Tom’s, are flooding my consciousness.
It’s pouring rain, and I’ve brought my homework to the Emporium, a coffeehouse whose warm ambiance seems unmatched anywhere on Earth, though I’ve looked. Lively conversation holders, liberal newspaper readesr, elderly couples kissing over breakfast, the editor of the newspaper, a mother with her children, and former Antiochians have gathered here this morning, along with me, on my laptop. My table, meant to seat four, is covered in textbooks, a notebook, my agenda, a tube of lip balm, my cell phone, and my breakfast: a spinach and feta cheese croissant, a bottle of cranberry juice, and a cup of organic cream-no-sugar-thank-you-very-much coffee. I’m trying to stay focused on my homework, but a ponytailed man sat down at the piano a little while ago, and not much later another man joined in on his guitar, and not much later started singing, too, and the lively tunes (including “If I Only Had A Brain” from the Wizard of Oz and “Here Comes A Sun”), the smell of coffee and bacon, the rustling of newspaper leaves being turned, and the occasional clink of dishes are creating the most beautiful mélange, pulling on something in the pit of my stomach that makes me feel almost choked up over how lucky I am to have grown up in Yellow Springs. I know that it’s not very grown-up at all to cry in public, so I won’t. I’m going to content myself knowing that I have finally graduated to the ranks of a proper Yellow Springs adult: I’m home, despite all the other college students having departed weeks ago for their big state schools and their little liberal arts colleges and their jobs in coffee shops not so very different from this one in other, probably equally unique (not that a Yellow Springer would ever admit it) but less nostalgic towns than this one. I work a full-time though non-traditional job. I read the liberal rags, my hybrid car is parked outside, I have an opinion about school board candidates, I have a plan for my life, but most importantly, for this particular moment, anyway, I’m doing my grown-up job of taking up this grown-up-sized seat in a coffee shop. And that’s something I’ve been waiting to grow up to do.
