My parthner's adorable little wooden chess! (Photo: Zoe)

Making Things in a Café: Small, Quiet Ways to Keep Your Hands Busy

On Sitting Alone, and Letting Your Hands Lead

This is the last part of a three-part series on intentional time alone in a café. Part One explored writing. Part Two focused on reading.

I still remember a particular Saturday morning when I had a meeting with a parent of my future students at noon. As I had not visited their neighborhood before, I arrived a couple of hours early to look around and, of course, to sit somewhere for a coffee. After ordering a filter coffee, I opened my Clairefontaine notebook to jot down some notes for the meeting. While writing, I paused to recall a specific detail we had discussed on the phone, and my eyes drifted across the room without any real purpose. That is when it happened: I noticed an old lady sitting alone near the window, enjoying her coffee, watching the people outside, and knitting something red. I must have been staring a little too long, because the waitress made a comment about Miss Sophia, as she was called, who came in every morning at nine without fail. She was always knitting, always looking around. Many of the regulars knew her by name and greeted her warmly when they arrived.

Miss Sophia made me think about the kinds of things one could do while sitting in a café. In this final article of the series, I would like to suggest five ways to spend your time doing something with your hands. From crochet to knitting, drawing, puzzle-solving and reviewing chess games, consider this a small source of inspiration.

Five Small Things to Make in a Café

1. Crochet a Coaster

If you are new to crochet, there is no need to begin with anything too ambitious, like a sweater or a complex pattern. A small square coaster for your coffee mugs is a perfectly good place to start. It is a genuinely relaxing activity, and it requires very little to carry around. Just a hook and some yarn.

2. Knit a Scarf

Much like crochet, knitting is something you can enjoy quietly in a café while your coffee cools beside you. It is not necessary to take on a grand project with complicated stitches and many colours. Begin easily, unhurried, and let something simple like a scarf take shape gradually.

3. Draw Kawaii Illustrations

If threads and yarn are not for you, but you love colours and small cheerful things, then kawaii drawing is worth trying. There are many resources online, but since I prefer not to bring my iPad to the café (too many notifications, too many distractions), I use a printed book as my guide. The one I have been working from is Kawaii: How to Draw Really Cute Stuff by Angela Nguyen. As the title suggests, everything in it overflows with charm. It is entirely worth your time.

4. Solve a Murder

Yes, you read that correctly. You can play detective while slowly sipping your coffee. I came rather late to the Murdle series of mystery puzzles, but from the moment I picked up the first book I was immediately won over. I have since worked through the whole series. There is something particularly satisfying about trying to solve a mystery while surrounded by the ambient noise of a café, the conversations, the clinking of cups, the coming and going of people. It makes you feel, just a little, like a real detective.

5. Review Chess Games

This one is not something I do myself. It is, rather, a habit that belongs to my partner. He plays chess and enjoys reading about openings and games. On the occasions when he agrees to join me at a café, we arrange in advance that we will each have our own quiet session side by side, not talking, simply being present in the same space. He always brings a chess book and a small wooden set. As you can see in the photograph I chose as the cover for this article, the board is wonderfully compact, small enough to fit in the palm of a hand.

So that is the end of the series on spending time alone in a café.

Writing, reading and making: three quiet ways to pass an hour without the pressure to produce something or the urge to hurry. Just your coffee, your corner of the room, and a little time that belongs entirely to you. As always, you are welcome to write to me with your own ideas.

- Zoe