Women on Foot Getting Coffee

Ultimately, the bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or friendship, is conversation.
Oscar Wilde

Life’s too short to drink bad coffee.
Unknown.

I love to walk.

Exploring a neighbourhood with women friends and finding a great café along the way, makes the experience a joyful one. Pairing a walk with a stop for coffee makes for a purposeful outing with an incentive built in.

The best way to see anything is on foot. Details in the landscape are so easily missed with other modes of transportation. One can take in such details up close and see them in relation to everything else. Walking is also my opportunity to become familiar with areas of the city I would not otherwise visit- the people who make a neighbourhood their home, local shopkeepers, community services (or lack thereof), green spaces, schools, and eateries of every kind. Some walks take my friends and I through the city’s ravines and parks, full of richness and diversity that so many of us- including me- take for granted.

When setting out, decision making and flexibility are essential what with detours, last-minute changes to the route, and getting lost being distinct possibilities.  There is often more than one way to get anywhere, and the most direct path is not always the favoured one. The best walks move us forward at a good pace with opportunity to take in the surroundings. It’s urban exploring.

Someone once told me that we think with our feet. Feet take us in the direction we need to go before we are even aware of it.  That has been my experience and I trust that at some level, my body knows better than my mind, which way I should go. The “rhythm of walking generates a kind of rhythm of thinking” *.  I know that once I get going, walking helps quiet the tiresome chatter in my brain and slows the thought process down to a more welcome form of reflection.

Just as feet move in many directions, so do conversations. I never fail to be surprised by the range in topics my walking companions and I cover.  Verbal exchanges can be serious in tone or lighthearted and may include:

• New projects on the go- large and small.
• Travel, family, and food related topics. Food conversation is my favourite! Everything from where or to buy the best croissants or butter tarts; good restaurants to try, or a great recipe for company.
• Problem solving:  If I want to know something, I ask my walking companions. Someone in the group almost always knows.
• The weird and sometimes alarming politics of the day.
• A forum to vent. No need to fix or offer advice- just a listening ear.
• Musing on the perplexing in life: Why is it so difficult to find plain toothpaste, water without additives, and clothes without logos? Why do family members do what they do?
• The challenges of buying a dress for a fancy occasion.

The best conversations engage different points of view and plant seeds for later reflection that take me through unexplored territory.

The destination of course is the café. The ones we have found are worth a visit for their superb coffee and assorted tasty treats.  A good coffee shop should have charm and a certain warmth to it, friendly staff- and of course, very good coffee. I am not a fan of white antiseptic chrome and glass decors. I want to enter a space that draws me in and invites me to stay awhile. I know immediately if I am in a welcoming place.

I highly recommend exploring on foot.  If you do venture out, go in search of a great café to hang out for awhile.  Here are just a few coffee places I have been to in the city. There are so many neighbourhood haunts in every town and city that are worth a visit.

Bisou: 350 Berkely Street  Bisou.to (Instagram)

Rapido: 1089 Bathurst Street  https://www.instagram.com/rapidocoffeebar/

B Espresso Bar: 273 Bloor West (in Royal Conservatory)  
https://www.blogto.com/cafes/b-espresso-bloor/

Gouter Patisserie: 300 Eglinton West; 3507 Bathurst Street https://www.gouter.ca/

Krave Coffee: 781 St Clair Avenue West, Unit 2 https://www.instagram.com/kravecoffee/?hl=en

Circles and Squares Bakery and Café: 1909 Yonge Street http://www.circlesandsquares.ca/

*I recommend Rebecca Solnit’s book, Wanderlust. A History of Walking. She covers just about everything there is to say about walking. She asserts that the mind is a kind of landscape and “walking is one way to traverse it.” (Page 5-6).

My thanks to friends who made great cafe suggestions. Special thanks to Marilyn, Nicole, and Sue and Jim. Jim knows many coffee gems in the city.