Scribbler's Cafe

A (borrowed) room of my own

I was terrified of the black door, terrified by the complete lack of clues that the plain wall and windowless front offered about the café-bar inside. A tiny sign on the door read:

D2-
Coffee Jazz

Coffee and jazz! I walked past three times. Would I be welcome? Was it too expensive? Would there be a place for a solitary woman to sit and write? Maybe later I’d check it out – I’m desperate for a scene, a nook, a late night place to sneak away to and scribble.

Later. Desperation drowns terror. Matt has granted me a couple hours of writing. “Get out of the house!” he said. I open the black door and step inside. A rush of warmth and the sound of piano jazz. The café is miniscule. I’ve had closets bigger than this place. There are only two intimate tables, plus three stools lined up at the short bar. A piano takes up half the room, lid closed. Stereo only tonight. A man approaching middle-age, with a hip, frizzed fro, smiles at me from behind the bar.

“Kohi, o’ kudasai.” Coffee please.

I sit at the large table – chairs for three people. I'll move if more customers come. The bartender makes the coffee with a French press. He takes his time. The coffee is served to me with a tiny carafe of cream and a cube of cookie on a plate which look like they belong in a doll house. The coffee is dark. Excenllent. It’s so hard to find strong coffee in this country.

I scribble away and the bartender flips through the records on the shelf to find the next selection. Records! The static of the needle fills the room – then a woman’s voice swelling and soaring – “Don’t go changing for me.” Possibly Ella. Sweet tunes; no political bent, no anguished crooning. So it can’t be Carmen or Billie. Lovely though.

I think I’ve found my place. This beats the previous shop as it’s just a short walk over the train tracks from my place. They also serve wine and bread. Good vibes. Good tunes. “I love you just the way you are.” I was wrong about Ella – it’s Rosemary Clooney. Maybe that’s why I don’t hear the black woman’s angst in her songs of love and blue eyes. I wonder if the bartender would take requests. I’d truly be in love with this place if he’s got an old record of Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue.

I should get back to my fictions. I’m having a hard time transitioning to lies. This place is so small. I worry that my written words are the most visible objects here. Please don’t read as I write.

I know I’ve been writing a lot about coffee shops lately, but I consider them a crucial element of my sanity. I have no room of my own, so now I must occasionally borrow corners of public cafes where my dear daughter cannot follow. When we first arrived in Japan, the only places resembling my beloved cafes in Washington were the Starbucks, and even those were crammed full of people and took a pronounced cafeteria/fast food vibe. Not conducive to creative flow. It’s taken me four months of vigilance to find the precious two coffee shops that I’ve written about and now claim as mine. Once these sanctuaries are established, I will be able to move on in my mind to write of things more interesting and pleasing to my imagined readers.

My imagined readers, how I love you so.

posted by Scribbler @ Sunday, December 19, 2004