I
didn’t get to know Elixir Vitae Coffee and Tea
until it was almost too late.
In the Ann Arbor coffee shop scene, Elixir
Vitae is an outlier. Maybe it’s the location, tucked
away on Maynard Street, a part of Ann Arbor that
only gets frequented by student traffic on Saturday
nights when the Scorekeepers line stretches into the
parking garage. Or the storefront, unassuming and
almost drab. But it’s something else, too — it feels like
you have to be invited to step foot in Elixir for the first
time. It’s not a place you just happen into by accident.
It’s difficult to conceptualize what exactly sets
Elixir apart. Maybe it’s the haphazard swirls and eyes
painted on the wall or the long-haired barista more
often than not found lounging out front smoking his
cigarette. Or maybe it’s the bathroom, covered in
hand-scrawled poetry, calls to activism, professions
of love and quips on the futility of existence. Elixir is a
conscious response to its Ann Arbor coffee shop peers
claiming to be alternative, quirky and counter-culture
with their mismatched furniture, racks of minimalist
greeting cards and $6 oat milk lattes.
Elixir is not a $6 oat milk latte coffee shop. Elixir is
a $2 local brew coffee shop.
I only found Elixir Vitae earlier this semester — my
senior year at the University of Michigan, after having
already lived in this city for three years. My first visit
was by invitation, of course. A friend was meeting
another friend there, and I was generously permitted
to tag along.
In those few short months since my introduction
to Elixir, I’ve fallen hard. It’s a fixture of my daily
routine now, a reflex — a given destination rather than
a conscious decision. Most days, I’ll set up shop at one
of the tables by the window with my mug of Roos
Roast Lobster Butter Love coffee, and hammer out
an essay, some emails, whatever’s on the list for the
day. It’s gotten to the point where it’s hard for me to
get certain tasks done if I’m not at Elixir, like writing
pretty much anything that’s not a dry response paper.
Something about the overall aura gets the creative
juices flowing in a manner the Ugli could never — the
majority of this column, for example, was written at
the window table closest to the door. It’s objectively
best table in Elixir — unobstructed view of street
traffic for people-watching breaks and right next to
the outlet.
How did I let Elixir take me over so completely, so
quickly?
I think my sudden, all-consuming attachment to
Elixir is due in large part to being a senior. I have a few
months left in Ann Arbor, and then my undergraduate
career will be over — done, finished.
Elixir is the kind of place that my ideally constructed
college student — the Rory Gilmore that high school
Meghann strived to be — would have spent all her
time. This character would be casually artistic and
creative in all the right ways, a person thoroughly
engaged in activism and changing the world,
constantly surrounded by huge circles of inspiring
and high-achieving friends.
And I don’t feel like that person — at least not in the
way that my naïve, high school self imagined I would
be.
I
have
wonderful
friends.
I’m
involved
in
organizations that feel relevant and inspiring. I
do recognize that I’ve grown immensely from the
person I was when I got to Michigan. I have a much
better sense of self, of what I like and who I want to
be around, and I’m proud of the person I am now — I
truly am.
But I don’t feel like I’ve achieved all the goals out
there, grown in all the possible ways, become that
elusive accomplished, worldly college student that
I was supposed to be by now, in my final year of
undergrad — even if that student is, and always was,
nothing but a construct pieced together from books
and TV shows and my academic parents’ dinner table
conversations growing up.
It’s hard to shake the sense that it’s too late. I’m
trying to grasp at all the straws that will make me
that person in my last couple semesters living in Ann
Arbor and doing the college thing. Spending all my
time at Elixir Vitae, prioritizing time with friends
that inspire me and make me laugh, writing (this
column), playing my guitar more often.
I’m well aware that it’s absurdly unrealistic to
expect that of myself, to live up to some ideal
of what I think the perfect college student
should be — after all, aren’t we all just constant
works in progress? Isn’t that what every self-
help book/motivational speaker/therapist ever
has said, over and over? But that doesn’t make it
any less difficult for me to accept that I haven’t
done everything that I wanted to in college —
and college is ending in only a few short months.
And when it does, there will be club meetings
I never went to, stories I never wrote,
friendships that were never deepened
past superficial hello’s.
So I’m clinging to Elixir for
the moment, and any semblance
of idealized identity I have
attached to it. Keeping in mind
that my days spent between
these electric teal walls are
numbered, and trying not to
think too much about what
will happen when those days
inevitably run out.
But am I allowed to be upset
about my time with this coffee
shop coming to an end? Can I
claim Elixir for my own, claim
whatever passing fling we’ve had
over the past couple months as an
affair serious enough to warrant
the overwhelming sadness I feel for
leaving its comforts?
In the end, all I can say is that I hope
students continue to embrace
Elixir — even after I’ve
gone,
despite
the
reflexive
twinge
of
jealousy
that
accompanies
the realization
that I’ll have to relinquish my space to a new
generation. I hope a new wave of college students
manage to spend their formative years sitting around
these tables, talking about socialism and climate
change — spending their whole college experience
having those conversations and being those people,
not just their senior year.
And maybe it wouldn’t make a difference. Maybe
this new wave of Elixir devotees would leave college
feeling just as disillusioned as I’m currently feeling,
struggling with at once recognizing how transformed
they’ve become over the past four years and being
terrified that there’s only so much time left for that
change to continue happening.
But I’d like Elixir to be there for them, anyway.
3B
Wednesday, November 13, 2019 // The Statement 3B
BY MEGHANN NORDEN-BRIGHT, STATEMENT COLUMNIST
Love letters to Ann Arbor: Beginnings
and endings at Elixir Vitae
ILLUSTRATION BY MAGGIE WIEBE