It’s Friday afternoon and I’m headed out the office door with a bounce in my step and a song in my heart. I am meeting my husband and our Friday night movie friends at the mall where my husband’s office is. I am excited to meet them at the food court for supper followed by a movie complete with popcorn. As soon as I step over the threshold of Chapters, I’m in weekend mode. So much to look at. I love wandering through the mall just to browse as I pass by the store windows. And after the movie I know we’ll be chatting and catching up over a beverage at Starbucks. We followed this routine for several years until Mike and I moved to another area of the city. We moved into an area that had its own movie theatre with a Starbucks and a Chapters in the same parking lot. It was perfect. Eventually popcorn became our supper and Starbucks our dessert after the movie. Every Friday night, we went to a movie. Sometimes the movies were great and sometimes not so much. We had a good laugh, especially when we invited our adult kids to join us. It was decided that I would become the chooser and discerner of our movies so watched less crap. It was just a fun date night. The friends that joined us every Friday night (and for many years – we met Wednesday nights for wings as well) were just as enthusiastic about the routine as we were.
Starbucks and Chapters. These places became my home away from home. Howard Schultz, founder of Starbucks, had a vision that his coffee shops would be the third place for people. First – home. Second – Work and Third – Starbucks. Well I drank the Starbucks Kool Aid, literally. Through no fault of my own, I found this particular Starbucks/Chapters becoming my second place due to the fact that in the span of the ten plus years we have lived at our current address, I have been laid off five times. Yes, that’s right…five times. I never would have left ANY of these jobs on my own as I loved each of them. So when I would find myself with hours and hours each day that I was at a loss to fill or just sick and tired of being at home while all my friends were working, I would drive myself to Starbucks/Chapters. My happy place. Very often I would bring a burlap Italian Market bag full of journals, books, day timer, and iPad and I would dream and plan life. My next step. My next thing. I’d grab my favorite beverage (the barista’s knew me and my drink by name. Very often my drink was waiting on the counter before I even got to the till to pay for it). There were also many regulars – like me. Just filling in lost hours in the day and hoping to bump into a fellow conversationalist. The regulars. We didn’t actually know each other and yet we did. Because we came to recognize each other and our Starbucks habits. I am not all that social verbally, but many of them had obviously become fast friends. I still don’t talk to strangers, even though I’m 63. It was obvious many went for companionship. Many were there for business meetings. Many were on their laptops doing their business. Meeting friends. Hosting a knitting club. One of my friends and I met at this Starbucks/Chapters every single Monday night for years as we tried to solve each other’s problems and ragale each other with family antics. Iron sharpening iron. There was just something about that particular location that held the secrets of my universe. It was a fun place. A healing place. A problem solving place. A shopping place. A planning place. A dreaming place. When I just wanted to be part of something bigger than my life or just part of the action, that was my ‘go to’ place. Many people that know me find that very strange…since I don’t even drink coffee. Like I said I drank Howard Schultz’s Kool Aid.
As you can probably surmise, I am in mourning now that I cannot frequent this trio of life giving amenities for me. It all began when our movie and wing friends decided to move to Hawaii for six months a year. We tried to keep the movie thing going but it just wasn’t the same. We did, however, visit them in Hawaii every year and go to movies. The first true sadness came when Randy (of our Friday night movie couple friends) passed away from cancer. We just didn’t feel like going to movies much anymore. Then my friend and I quit our Monday night meetings as we moved into different phases of life. Next, the pandemic hit us early in spring and the theatres and Chapters and Starbucks were shut down. I could only go to a drive thru Starbucks in a neighboring community to keep the habit alive. I was hanging on for dear life. By summer they opened things back up a bit and we could go to my favorite Starbucks and sit outside. So we availed ourselves of that. Chapters was open but you had to limit your time inside the store due to the lineup of people waiting (a result of attempting to reduce crowding inside). No more lollygagging with beverage in hand. We were wearing masks and drying out our hands with hand sanitizer. The wall that used to be open between Starbucks and Chapters now closed. One couldn’t even use the washrooms. The Starbucks floor was covered in green arrows telling you where you could stand and walk and breathe. The tables had signs on them as to which ones could be used and which ones couldn’t, for the sake of social distancing. Starbucks is NOT a social distancing place. Hello? A regular like myself, could ascertain that Chapters was having trouble keeping their shelves stocked. The magazine section was bare and there were sections of the store roped off. Even the precautions they were taking at the theatres, once they opened back up, made us not want to go back. Everything was loosing its charm.
One fateful day in November, the day of the Starbucks Christmas rollout, I took myself to ‘my’ Starbucks only to find it closed….indefinitely. I went into the Chapters to ask one of the clerks I was familiar with what was going on and she said they were closed until further notice (but probably forever). With the new restrictions in place, and they not having a drive through, they decided to close shop. And now theatres are closed again. I overheard one particular customer service rep at Chapters explain to a customer that Chapters was suffering due to no Starbucks. My heart sank. Everything was changing and my happy place was hanging on by a thread. Chapters was open through Christmas and I did go several times but it just wasn’t the same. Just didn’t feel like Christmas and every time I went, there was less and less product on the shelves. I dropped by again this afternoon as I fear it’s only a matter of time before the Chapters closes too and I want to remember my last time there. I saw stuff on the shelves I hadn’t seen for months, indicative of them pulling our everything from the stockroom to fill the shelves. Do I see the writing on the wall? Time will tell. But this is a chapter (pardon the pun) of my life I may have to totally close the door on and then find a way to mourn the whole thing.
So what has the pandemic taken from me? It has taken this place of joy and sanity from me. Just one of the many losses of 2020. The memories are sweet and poignant. I will remember the good times. The precious times. The fun. The camaraderie. And look for what is next. Possibly I was wasting too much time in a place that was not steering me towards God’s plan for my life. Or maybe it just is what is. I will mourn for a time and then I will move on.
We had us a time Chapters/Starbucks and Landmark.
The Red Plaid Apron 