One Coffee, Two Hours

Joan watches him realize that nobody is waiting for him.

By Neil Solomon · 3 min read

Picture a couple named Joan and Peter. In the city where they used to live, coffee was something Peter drank in the car. Here, on their first morning, he orders one to go. The waiter looks puzzled and offers him a seat.

Peter sits. Joan watches him realize that nobody is waiting for him.

"I do not know what to do with my hands," he says.

"Drink the coffee," she says.

I like this scene because it shows the small shock many people describe. The new pace does not announce itself. It simply arrives in a cup.

How it looks by place

Croatia. One writer is amused to learn that coffee is meant to be sat over. Taking it to go seems like a small rudeness to the place. She sounds more charmed than irritated.

Bulgaria. Lingering over a single drink for hours is normal and easy. Nobody hovers to turn the table.

Montenegro. Naps and coffee shape the day. The same account adds that the language turned out to be harder than expected. Slow days, it seems, do not make words easier to learn.

Malta. One retiree describes staying in during summer and walking in winter. The pace follows the weather. That makes sense to me, and it sounds restful.

Italy. On the island of Sardinia, a teapot becomes a promise. The writer is building roots there, one slow afternoon at a time.

Moldova. A person walks to work through a park and feels content. Not every slow life is about sitting. Sometimes it is about a gentler way to get there.

Ireland. The advice here is to stop comparing and start organizing. I take it to mean that the new place will not match the old one, and measuring will only make us tired.

Armenia. This is the hard story. One account describes depression that came from the wrong pace. The person did not find the slow days restful. They found them heavy.

What I take from it

A slow pace is a different thing for different people. For some, it takes pressure off. For others, it takes structure away, and structure was what held them up.

The Armenia story matters to me because it is honest. We tend to describe slow living as a prize. It can also be an empty room. If our old days were built around work, a slower one may leave a hole where purpose used to sit.

The happier stories have something in them. A walk. A teapot. A habit. The slow day is not blank. It is filled with small things the person chose.

Peter and Joan found a bench near the café. They went back the next day, and the next. By the end of the month the waiter knew their order.