There were twelve of us or so scattered around a few tables shoved together in a side aisle of a now long-gone, slightly stylish food and grocery venue called Holiday Market, in Portland. Over the prior year, I had made the acquaintance of a lovely man, who invited me to show up for this apparently weekly event. Arrival time was 11’ish and folks stayed until 1’ish.
There was no agenda, just conversational catch-up on the past week. Jokes would be shared. Some gossip might circulate. If someone had died (a lot did back in those days, this was a group of gay men), some feelings and stories of their lives and loves and adventures would be shared, along with details for their memorial.
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I met a few folks that day whom I still know, decades later.
This event got started because someone called some friends, invited them to show up for coffee, and invited them to invite their friends, too. A couple of folks chose to show up every single week, or make sure someone else did, just to be sure the table never went empty. Sometimes someone would put a big flower or balloon on the table, or just wave likely folks over, to help first-timers know which table to approach.
Almost thirty years later, this weekly coffee klatch still happens out in Portland, every Saturday. An email group for announcements about it has grown to several hundred members. This email group now functions like an old cork bulletin board. Things are given away, housing tips are shared, special events are announced. Political chats are mostly squelched, because this group knows from experience the group those happen best face to face. When new folks move to town, friends tells friends of this coffee klatch and its email group, so they can quickly meet new folks.
All because someone invited some friends to coffee, thirty years ago, and kept up the invites.
America is going through a rough patch. I doubt anyone who reads this could disagree. Americans are also looking at screens far more than we look at other humans. How could this not affect us?
Walking up to a table and setting down my cup of coffee next to the rest can be difficult for an introvert, like me. It is easier for me to write to someone than to talk with them. Which is why I know I need both. Sometimes writing is good. Other times, watching someones eyes dance (or glaze) while I tell a tale, or they regale me with their own, feels like taking in a good meal.
When I go without something I need, my body lets me know. This leaves me wondering if Americans are really just feeling hangry1 for a nourishing meal of neighborliness. That seems simplistic. But, we are also staring at phones. A lot.
I was sitting reading email one day, some years back, when the email group for this coffee klatch popped a message in my inbox. I barely knew him, but he was asking for help. Johnny was one of the regulars, known for his cackling laugh and a circus of tattoos. He had been gone for a while. He had left Portland to go help his family with some difficult matters. He was not wealthy, and the months he spent helping his mother (was it surgical recovery?) left him in a bit of a lurch, when it was time for him to return to his own life back in town. He was asking the group if someone had an old mobile phone he could have. I had several sitting in a drawer. So, I hit “reply.”
Getting Johnny up and running on his “new-to-you” phone was a bit more involved than I had first thought. He was couch-surfing in a distant suburb, had only a bicycle available, and needed to get a SIM card and service for this phone I was giving him, from a hard to reach location. Because I had a good job, weekends off, a car, and a willingness, he and I ended up on a three-hour adventure together, bopping through all the stops needed to get him set up with the basic communications device he needed to get back on his feet.
As a result, a friendship sparked between us. Nothing deep, nothing magical. But, I know if I ever needed and asked, Johnny would step right up to do what he could, no questions asked. This happened because he was willing to risk the vulnerability of publicly asking for what he needed, and I was willing and able to help. That’s all it took. Together we knit a stitch in our local community.
In the wake of the 2024 elections, my husband, Michael, was looking for a way to knit some stitches in our local LGBTQ community, out here in Montana. Folks in big cities often fail to see how good they have it, nor to realize how much pressure remains in smaller places, for those of us born to love and live our lives differently than most.
So, Michael started a coffee klatch.
It was not hard. He planned a date, time, and central location, then sent out an invitation to friends, and invited them to invite their own friends. He began posting a simple weekly announcement in a local online group. He showed up, and still does, every single week, or makes sure someone else will be there to anchor the table. For over a year and a half now, five to ten folks, sometimes more, have shown up each week. Just to say hello, share a bit of news, and maybe just stare at their phone near another person whom they can show funny memes, and share a real, live laugh.
Sometimes things are chatty and sometimes quiet. It is just a cup of coffee. None of it is a big deal. But, folks keep showing up.
“There is a physiological reason why some people get angry when they’re hungry…”
https://health.clevelandclinic.org/is-being-hangry-really-a-thing-or-just-an-excuse