It was a slow Saturday morning at Phin. Slow too was my coming to the shop due to a frosty windshield and a sleepy mist that seemed annoyed by the early disturbance. Slow enough that I could pretend to be a customer enjoying a coffee and a Le Guin story. The first guest arrived, a regular, a middle age Vietnamese woman whose connection with Phin and me I can only describe as two karmic strands whose paths veered at some point many lifetimes ago toward our encounter last year. Her presence at Phin often feels unsubstantial the way incense smoke dissipates but lingers in air, invisible only because every bit of tension holding its molecules to materiality has dissolved.
I began her order of hot bạc sỉu and pandan waffle, same as always and, as always, I asked about her life and work. But in the expansive stillness of the shop that morning, our banter didn’t just meander the shores of small talk. It sailed out over the deeper waters of friendship. New stories emerged, memories recollected, experiences confided. Tears…seen. Like all good conversations, the passage of time was but a dream, realized only at the moment of its ending. She left for work and I had other guests to tend to. She promised to see me again before Tết.
2025 saw the 5th year of Phin’s existence, the rearranging of its landscape and soundscape, and marked the first time on this journey I believed it’s going to be okay. Rest assured, my imposter caught up with me again soon enough but, throughout this time, no matter my fluctuating confidence in what I was doing, I remained certain that I was doing it the right way because a long time ago I decided that how well this little cafe does would be measured in no small way by the tears shed within its walls.
To cry is to be human and it was always important to me that Phin is a humanizing place. In the martial milieu that is the United States of America where life itself, never mind luxuries like spaciousness and imagination, comes with a hefty price tag, starting a business that’s also a refuge for the softest of emotions and the brightest of dreams seemed neither possible nor sensible but I was new to this thing and therefore unrestrained in my idealism, gossamer threads I tried to weave into Phin’s design. It’s a subtle element; it has to be. Many sense it, noting how calm the cafe is. Some linger long enough to breathe it in before exhaling a knotted breath. And on rare occasions, usually after a few visits, someone cries at Phin, their tears adding to the patina that makes this space feel more human as it ages.
Phin is by no means the only such space. Much of it was built from remnants of the places where I’ve felt most human: a temple held together by moss, a cathedral on Sunday, a beach that answered my question, a town whose residents recognized no border, a cafe built around a tamarind tree, a museum whose artifacts were gifted rather than stolen, a friend’s fraying blue couch, a quiet book store with a book I didn’t know I needed, a lodge heated by a wood stove, a restaurant that sold just 3 items for 3 decades, to name a few. Some of these places will remain long after I’m gone, some have already concluded their time, some were meant to be visited only once.
There are, of course, other ways to be human here besides crying, a favorite of which is when folks return to the cafe dragging their parents along and gleefully showing Phin off with the excitement of a child who had found a slightly different maple leaf on the autumn ground. It’s a singular joy to bear witness to every instance of humanity in this space over the past 5 years. Now, standing at the precipice of some big changes for the business, I just wanted to remember these moments so they can continue to guide what I do. This space will always be human.
