Dispatch | Blissful solo dates: coffee shops and journaling in Brooklyn

Growing up in northern New Jersey, I frequented New York City almost every weekend with my family to visit my paternal grandmother, who resided in the quaint neighborhood of Stuyvesant Town–Peter Cooper Village in Manhattan. A quip of wisdom that my grandmother endowed me during those day trips, corroborated by encouragement from my parents, was to keep a journal of my adventures, regardless of where I went: local, domestic, or international.

I did not quite understand the significance of such a habit. Maintaining a written record of my daily activities in a new environment during a trip seemed like extra work that I did not find particularly exciting. However, my 10-week internship spent in Brooklyn through the Princeton Internships in Civic Service program has galvanized a newfound affinity for journaling, in the context of reshaping my appreciation for a new borough in the New York City metropolis.

Having not ventured into Brooklyn much during my childhood visits to the city, it was quite exhilarating to cross over the Brooklyn Bridge and find myself in a seemingly different municipality — separate and individualized from the congested Manhattan island. As part of my acclimation to the moodier, quieter streets, I took up journaling as a way to recount my daily experiences in a city that my paternal side of the family had once called home.

I particularly reveled in journaling on solo dates, when I explored new neighborhoods during the weekends or worked remotely from a local coffee shop during the afternoons of asynchronous workdays. Tucking myself into a little corner or nook of a retro-style cafe, adorned with minimalist interior design, vintage artwork, and sometimes refreshing botanicals, I inscribed in my small, orange notebook my weekly affairs and thoughts thereof. The fresh, intimate surroundings drove blossoming productivity in my internship work and emboldened motivation for my journaling.

I scribbled in my notebook while seated on slick, evergreen benches along the perimeter of Fort Greene Park, sipping a maple mocha latte from a nearby narrow coffee bar. My pen moved with deliberate motions on the lines of the paper while I slowly savored my roasted chicken sandwich on sourdough bread at a little eatery in Greenpoint. My favorite place to journal was this one coffeehouse called Swallow Cafe in the tastefully understated neighborhood of Cobble Hill. The interior dark hardwood and worn-out brick facades provided a homely, rustic space that reconciles the industrial past and modern young spirit of Brooklyn, giving the institution, in trend with the rest of the neighborhood and borough, a mellowed vibrancy perfect for journaling.

Journaling on a consistent basis, especially during my solo dates in various coffee shops, was emotionally relieving. It provided me with comforting mental soundness, especially during a time of instability, uncertainty, and volatility in our world.

I continued these solo dates in local book stores and art collector shops, where fashionable and curated collections of literature and visual prints piqued my curiosities and thus extended the already lengthy amounts of time I got to spend with just myself and my thoughts— unperturbed and unabashed. Numerous hours spent on these solo quests traversing all that Brooklyn had to offer was also a way to facilitate more material that I could discuss in my daily journal entries.

Journaling was not just a way for me to reminisce fondly on cherished moments in the city. It was a way for me to come to terms with the evolving social landscape of a city that had once seemed so familiar to me, but now exhibits increasingly prevalent scenes of erasure and displacement of long-time inhabitants.

Communities that had grounded themselves in the cultural fabric of the New York City metropolis, which my paternal side of the family had belonged to ever since the 1950s, are now being overshadowed — priced out and uprooted. Areas like Williamsburg and Park Slope have visibly been repurposed into hipster taverns and rustic residential condos, oddly situated next to picturesque brownstones and maximalist luxury redevelopments. It was a dishearteningly deep reality that I reckoned with over my 10 weeks of summer living.

As I journaled, I recalled what my grandmother had remarked about the beauty of keeping a written record of one’s adventures. Even if it was for documenting my internship stint in a borough that I did not have much familiarity with, I see now how it helps me cement my memories and recognize the ever-changing, seismic adjustments that a place my family could once call home is undergoing. This contributed to a sense of clarity, a sort of mental equilibrium.

Scrawling entries into my small orange notebook, alongside sipping my go-to beverage of a mild chai latte in vintage cafes on a painfully hot and sunny afternoon, was my way of immortalizing this singular point in my lifetime. This was the warmful bliss of my summer in Brooklyn.

Russell Fan is a head editor for The Prospect at the ‘Prince.’ He can be reached at rf4125@princeton.edu, or on Instagram @russell__fan.