Reflections from Lemonjello's

I understand why coffee shops are the Mecca of writers.

When I walk in here, I enter a communal living room of sorts. Except this living room has one blue wall, one yellow wall, and one red wall, and the tabletops have three-dimensional stars.

You are talking about credit ratings with two other people, heads bent close together, eyes lit: learning is taking place. The girl and her boyfriend - brother? - are playing Scrabble at a two-person table. I wonder who's winning. And where she got her shoes. They are so different, old-fashioned, laced, maybe suede. People in here always have footwear like that. The guy over there is reading and sipping his drink. From behind I think he's a dad, but his red backpack and tennis shoes suggest otherwise.

There's artwork on the wall for sale, scones behind the glass for sale, something called maté with a special straw for sale. People come, people go, and I sit with my novel, less-immersed than usual because the novel in front of my face is real life.

When my drink was ready, he said, "You, in the purple. Did you order summer?" If you didn't check the menu and see that summer is the name of hot chocolate with blackberry and strawberry, perhaps the question would be a bit absurd in the middle of Michigan winter. But when you're standing in the middle of a coffee shop with dwarf statues in the corners and a barista that looks like Confucius, anything is possible.