A seasoned traveller, one I admire greatly, once told me:
"If you want to truly study a new place, find a popular café. Sit there. Watch the comings and goings."
Today, I am sitting at one in Denton, Texas—a small town where, on this Easter Sunday, the streets are almost deserted. The few cars that pass seem to move with intent. The town feels sealed shut. I know no one here. That's what brought me to this café—West Oak Coffee Bar, a place said to be popular with students and, occasionally, their visiting parents.
The head barista catches my attention. Long waist-length hair, a rough stubble, a faded cap perched stubbornly on his head—as if the world had spun ahead and he had chosen to stay behind in a version he liked better. When not serving customers, he is pouring buckets of water into cloth-lined tubs, perhaps to prepare a batch of cold brew. His movements are unhurried and ritualistic.
The café is spacious enough for 50, though only 10 of us occupy it now. Popular music fills the air—the kind designed to cushion the silences. Most sit alone, hunched over laptops, plugged into private worlds through their earbuds. The music is less a backdrop and more a shield against the awkwardness of empty sound.
I study the crowd, as advised. Despite the silence, it feels oddly comforting to be among them. A man in black bends low over a book, sipping black coffee.
Two boys walk in—one orders a neon-pink and green iced strawberry matcha latte, a drink so synthetic-looking it seems conjured by a chemist rather than a barista. He relishes it anyway.
A father and teenage daughter enter. He looks out of place—the kind of man who brews his watery coffee at home each morning without ceremony. His daughter, more at ease, slips immediately into her laptop, absorbed. He stands awkwardly, waiting for his drink, scanning the room for something familiar. He might be the oldest one here today.
A man in a Mickey Mouse T-shirt drifts in, studying the menu with the careful indecision of a tourist. The long-haired barista grows slightly impatient but steps in to help. A cappuccino is settled on, an incongruous choice for a man dressed like that—though I remind myself not to judge too swiftly.
A girl wearing a hijab walks in, full of tentative energy. She exchanges a few warm words with the barista—a ritual, perhaps, the first step to becoming a regular. She settles near me, laptop out, and I wonder, for a moment, what it feels like to live in Trump's Texas as a hijab-wearing woman. But I lack the courage to ask. Some silences, it seems, must be respected.
Slowly, a rhythm takes hold.
The espresso machine coughs and hisses at regular intervals. The door opens and closes with the comings and goings. A cadence builds—the familiar heartbeat of a town at rest.
It mirrors the city outside. Cities, like cafés, fall into patterns, rituals. Most days pass without upheaval, without drama. Only something drastic—a flood, a fire, a tragedy—can upset their steady pulse. Think of what happened once to New York.
As I finish my coffee and step out onto the street, I think about the nature of places. Visitors arrive. Some settle, adapting to the town's hidden rhythms. Others leave, dismissing its eccentricities too soon. Those who go voluntarily often criticise what they cannot understand. But those who are pulled away by circumstance—they are the ones who remember the routines and patterns with a soft, aching fondness.
I wonder: How will I remember Denton when it's time to leave?
Or will I leave at all? Perhaps—unknowingly—I have already found my home.