Changing Places: Lise Meijer on Cafés

The café door.

I am sitting in a cosy café at the harbour in a small town near my home. Outside it’s an unusually cold May day. The mildness and warmth that normally sets in around this time of year has not been very successful. That just makes the warm, glowing atmosphere inside with good food and cosy people even more heartwarming.

Today, I am the only person sitting alone – but I am not lonely. I have good coffee in front of me and I have my special writing book and pen. My mind knows what this means and already starts to do a little inner dance: it’s café-time. My café-time!

Cafés are places I return to again and again for fuel. They open a door in me; create a pause in life without the things of my daily life to distract. No laundry to hang, no-one knocking on my door, no unfinished projects lying around. They work as a kick-starter for a creative place in me. I easily get wings here, wings that lift me above life to a bird’s eye view and give my heart and art perspective. I think we all need that now and then, a distance to see how our life is unfolding.

Just like too cold Mays, I can get a little stiff, too absorbed in things that need doing and in wrapping my head around deadlines or fulfilling lists. So I need to warm myself to life, and a writing hour in a café is very helpful for that. I start feeling playful again, in that in-between space and time.

I have been in many different cafés in many different towns and different countries. Spaces designed to enjoy life where someone has made an effort to make it beautiful and cosy, even on a Monday morning! I do like some cafés more than others. I prefer an old French atmosphere and white painted paned windows. But the beauty of it is that that is not crucial to the experience.

Just as a person we don’t find beautiful at first can become very attractive when their inner life shines through their eyes, a café can turn into the most attractive place simply because of the experience it allows. It is the door that opens up inside me that matters. A door to a place where ideas and solutions seem to flow quite effortlessly while my pen travels over the paper. I see connections and suddenly know which road to take. And I often get brand new creative ideas here whilst writing and drinking coffee.

I did not always enjoy solo café life. When I was still very young a friend of mine told me he enjoyed sitting alone in a café, reading. I remember feeling a hard knot in my stomach: I would never be able to feel content spending time alone in a café. I was a shy girl and utterly embarrassed by the thought. Luckily I decided to give it a try, anyway - just to broaden my comfort zone. I had no idea that a door of inspiration was about to open wide, a door that would continue to open in any café anywhere in the world at any time, with pen or computer at hand.

I am so grateful for having that door in my life.

Lise is Danish and lives in the south of Denmark with her Dutch husband and their two children. She is an artist, musician and dancer….and runs life-enriching courses on creativity.  She shares her wonderful wisdom through her blog, Creative Vitamins.

Changing Places is a guest post series about the power of place to change us.  You can read other stories in the series here.  If you’d like to share your story, please contact me for submission details.

Comments

[Kellen]

Lovely thoughts. Cafes can be magical and just the right place when you need them. So glad you found a place that inspires you.