Saturday, August 8, 2026

Nora Meets Annie

I have a lot of friends here in Oregon. More than my Alaska self remembers to brag about. Two of them are about to become permanent. I am writing them into Chapter Two as Dave and Annie Copperfield, and they meet Nora at a coffee shop in Astoria. Dave is playing guitar in the corner the way he does. Annie is being her adorable self, which took me exactly no imagination to put on the page. That is the sneaky joy of writing about the place you come from. The people you love keep wandering into the story and asking to stay. I keep letting them. Nora does not know yet how much these two are going to matter to her. But I do. 🌼 Chapter Two Beginning: She stood in the line and watched him for a while before she meant to. He was a big easygoing man of about sixty with a salt and pepper beard and a flannel shirt and a battered guitar he held like an old friend, and he was working his way through something that was almost a song she knew and not quite, smiling down at his own hands, not once looking up to see whether anyone was listening. That was the thing that reached in and turned something over in her. He was not performing. He was playing a room for the plain warmth of it, giving the thing away to whoever happened to be drinking coffee at nine on a foggy morning, and getting back the only wage he want-ed, which was the warmth itself, the ease of the room, the way a couple by the window had stopped talking to listen. Nora knew that ache from the inside, though it had been so long she was startled to feel it move. There had been a time, small and bright and a very long way back, when a channel like that had run through her own hands, when she had sat down at a keyboard cross and thirteen and got up an hour later emptied out and clean. But she had never once in her life been able to do what this man was doing, which was to pour the gift out into a room for nothing but the warmth of it. Nora had needed the pay. That was the plain and unbeautiful truth of her whole life. There had always been rent, and then a mortgage, and then the long careful economies of a marriage, and a gift you cannot afford to give away for free becomes a thing you sell, and a thing you sell becomes work, and the current that might have run into a room for warmth ran instead into other people's cases, quietly, competently, for a fee that was never quite enough and a credit that never came at all. She did not begrudge the man his guitar. She envied it, which was different and worse. He got to be warmed by his own gift in front of everyone. Hers had gone out of her in private, for money, into the dark, for forty years. "He'll play all morning if you let him," said the woman ahead of her in line, turning around. "I've stopped trying to stop him." She was a bright-faced woman with sandy blond hair cut short and an expression that had clearly never once in its life learned to hide what it was thinking. She nodded toward the guitar player with the particular exasperated fondness that only belongs to people who have been married a long time and are glad of it. "Yours?" Nora said, setting the ache down so it would not show. "Mine. Forty-one years of mine. Dave." She said the name the way you set down something you are proud of. "I'm Annie." "Nora." "Nora." Annie looked at her properly then, the open frank way some people have, taking her in without making a study of it. "You're not from here. Don't take that wrong, I just know everybody, it's a curse. Passing through?" "Driving the coast," Nora said. "South. All the way to Jacksonville, eventually, taking my time." "Oh, the whole length of it." Annie's face lit. "What a thing to do. By yourself?" And there it was, the question that should have stung, the one that had been finding the soft place under Nora's ribs for eleven weeks. By yourself. But Annie had asked it the way you ask a person about a good idea, with no pity in it at all, only interest, and some-how in her mouth it was not the lonely thing it had been in everyone else's. "By myself," Nora said, and found she could say it plainly. "I drove down from Seattle yesterday. I've got a yellow bus and a notebook and nowhere I have to be. It's the first thing I've done for myself in about thirty years."

Favorite Coffee Shop

Coffee Girl

Coffee Girl was in an old cannery along with other shops. On the back end overlooking the water a long deck with tables and chairs. Lovely and quaint. Coffee Girl is a distinctive coffee shop located on Pier 39 in Astoria, Oregon, housed within the historic Hanthorn Cannery building—the oldest cannery structure on the West Coast. This unique location offers patrons a perfect blend of rich history and scenic views of the Columbia River. The name "Coffee Girl" pays homage to the women who served coffee to cannery workers during the building's operational days. The original lunch counter from which coffee was served remains a feature of the café, adding to its historical charm and connecting us to the past. The café boasts a cozy interior complemented by a wall of windows, providing expansive views of the river. Visitors can enjoy watching ships pass by and observe local wildlife, including sea lions and pelicans. During favorable weather, outdoor seating on the pier allows for an immersive waterfront experience. Access to Coffee Girl involves driving or walking onto Pier 39, with parking available directly on the pier. The journey across the wooden pier enhances the unique experience. Adjacent to the café is the Hanthorn Cannery Museum, offering insights into the region's canning history and the operations of the former Bumble Bee Seafood cannery.

Where I'm Eating

Locals Seafood on the Harbor

For lunch, Crab Salad, the dressing was amazing and zingy with something like horseradish. I sat across from the Harbor in an outdoor covered patio and watched the boats.