I find myself more on the road this year than of past years. My defacto travel standard is to find a local cafe to hang out in when I’m not working, a place that isn’t a chain passing off sugary liquids as coffee. The traveler in me hopes they open early and stay open late to meet my lonesome demands for caffeine and company, but this is rarely the case in most places I’ve worked this year.

Local places have regulars, and regulars typically keep to a schedule. Small town cafe’s have the most allure; they can eb and flow from empty to busy within those schedules, the sound rising like a film score from Beltrami.

The folks that do wander in on a quiet Saturday that do decide to sit down are rarely alone; they sit in pairs not unlike sparrows sitting on a branch, chirping about their very existence.

“The skins on the apricot must come off, or how are you to make a decent jam?” a woman of advanced age says to her daughter. She’s drinking black coffee from an orange tan cup, the shaded nook within the front of the cafe doing little to contain the lively conversation.

“Your aunt couldn’t make a decent jam if she spent half her day praying. You know Jesus don’t have the time for jams and jellies.”

A group of young college students wander in adding to the music, ordering their drinks and talking to each other while never making eye contact; they’re feverishly typing on their phones. The pause in the typing as the drinks arrive results in something I was unaware people of their age did; they put their phones down and proceeded to converse.

“My evening was a B- at best” says a young woman, drinking from her to-go cup. “Would have been a solid B had Jonathan not ruined the second party we went to.”

Her friends implore her to elaborate, the gentle nudge of interrogation that friends often partake in post Friday night. I’m not so old to not remember those conversations, just far removed. She declines with a wry smile peaking out from behind her black hair.

The people come and go, tables moved and repositioned, photographs and laughter exchanged. The conversations are tiny windows into the controversies and challenges of the lives in this little local cafe in this even smaller town. As the fading sun illuminates respective evening plans and trysts, the barista makes a seemly ending wave of the very sugary drinks that I quite dislike, as if I should have any say in the matter.

Of course, a cafe isn’t about coffee though, its about people coming together and sharing with each other the scope of their lives. How much they want to share is limited only by hushed a tone they choose to use.

“Laura, let me tell you, I did something amazing with my pickles this year.”

A good cup of cappuccino of course never hurt.