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

