Our theme for the month of October is “haunt.”

Have I told you guys I hate capitalism?

I definitely have. In fact, I devoted an entire post to how I hate capitalism. I hate capitalism on principle, but I also hate it for personal reasons. One of those reasons is that capitalism killed my favorite coffee shop.

On September 8 (one day after my birthday—heck of a birthday present!) the Gathering Coffee Co closed its doors after four years open. The first time I visited the shop after the news had been announced, I asked the owner Emily why, and short answer: capitalism. Long answer: rising building prices in Detroit’s North End neighborhood where the Gathering was meant that she’d be paying out the nose–nearly $150,000 more than before–to keep the building, and unfortunately, the bank doesn’t accept caffeinated nervous systems, community bonds and warmed hearts as currency, so the Gathering’s doors had to close.

I found the Gathering by accident. In the haze of my first postgrad year, traveling to different coffee shops around Detroit became a pastime. On the rotation one day was the Gathering. The savory scones seduced me, I had a fun conversation with Elijah, the barista on duty, and the bathroom being pristine made me fist pump. Is that ridiculous? Yes. After using multiple public bathrooms where I’ve wanted to hover in mid-air over the toilet to make sure I don’t contract a battery of STDs, am I uber-appreciative of businesses that treat their bathrooms like places human beings use? You bet your sweet bippy I am. As I grabbed another scone for the road, I knew this was a place I’d be coming back to.

A few months later, I finally got hired. When I went to my new job’s HQ building to pick up my badge and uniform, I felt a thrill as I realized I’d be down the street from the Gathering on a regular basis. On professional development days, I’d get off the bus, walk past my HQ building, and pick up something hot and caffeinated before going into work. Because Detroit’s North End neighborhood is packed, the Gathering was also next door to Vault of Midnight, a dope comic book shop. My dad, brother and I would often stop in to Vault of Midnight after doing volunteer work at church, and I in turn would sometimes stop in at the Gathering.

I went to this place a lot is what I’m saying.

And granted, the frequency of my visits plummeted once my Americorps service year wrapped, but in the same way you’re still devastated when a friend or relative you haven’t talked to in years dies, it was still a gut punch to see the Instagram post announcing the date of the Gathering’s last day open.

In the middle of writing this post, I learned that October would be a theme month. Theme: “haunt.” So allow me to ask myself the relevant question: how am I haunted by the Gathering’s closing?

Returning to the death of the estranged friend/loved one analogy, in that situation you tend to think about all the opportunities you had to reach out or stop by to see how the recently deceased was faring. Similarly, I was unemployed from March to the early weeks of September. I think now of all the days I spent at home, wanting to do something besides orbit inside my house’s four walls, and heading over to the Gathering never crossed my mind. Granted, unemployment. Money’s tight. But sentiment tends to override logic.

But let me ask myself another question: is being haunted a bad thing?

To quote my favorite game, the culmination of love is grief. I miss people who have passed on—my grandma, my Aunt Pam, my mentor Dan—because I love them. I feel the occasional pang of sad nostalgia working as a youth leader because I have memories I’ll treasure forever from my time as a youth group student, teenage year-defining experiences I can never return to. And I write about how much I miss a recently-defunct business because the Gathering, to myself and many, many people, was more than a place to get a good chai. In the same way memories of my Grandma, of Dan, of youth events almost a decade in the past, sometimes return to me late at night and make me go to sleep with a smile and teary eyes, I’m happy I started something beautiful by checking out this place I’d pulled from typing ‘coffee shops’ into Apple Maps, that I met Elijah, Emily, Billy, Saga, Sharon, Darek, Rose, Onyx, Emily’s mom, that I have an open invitation to visit with Emily and Saga when they return from a much-deserved vacation in Europe. It saddens me that the four walls that made all of that happen are now occupied by another business, but Asgard isn’t a place, it’s a people, and Emily and Saga are working to elevate the Gathering from a business to a community.

This month’s blog photo is one I took of the Gathering’s slogan: Alone Is Nothing You Are.

Here’s to you, Gathering.

Haunt me all you want.

Alone is nothing I will be.

Noah Keene

Noah Keene graduated from Calvin University in December 2021 with a major in creative writing and a minor in Spanish. He currently resides in his hometown of Detroit, Michigan. He spends his free time reading and putting his major to good use by working on his first novel. See what he’s reading by following him on Instagram @peachykeenebooks and read his other personal writing by going to thekeenechronicles.com.