Finding a Bookworm in Downtown Denver

While exploring downtown Denver recently, I happened upon Tattered Cover, an independent bookstore my friend Bryna told me about. Located past the foot traffic of the 16th Street Mall, this charming bookstore invited me in with its “Indie Bound” sticker on the door, its noises and smells reminiscent of cozy school days and cloudy Saturdays.

With its hardwood floors and soft lighting and Victorian-style furniture, Tattered Cover is just the place I imagine when someone says, “curl up with a good book.” The first floor bustles and the in-house café warms the space with espresso and cookies. New books of all shapes and sizes fill the varnished shelves and tables, never crowded, never overstocked. I spend twenty minutes browsing just inside the doorway, remembering what it’s like to lose myself in thousands of stories all at once.

Unlike some corporate mega-store, Tattered Cover tells its own stories, the space itself just as important as the books it sells. I look up from an Obama picture book and watch a lonesome fifth grader find friends in her favorite chapter book. I watch a couple browse the table of film literature and a disheveled man dream of a different life in the travel section. Their stories feel like my own.

I continue through the store, making my way to the grand staircase in the back, its dark banister inviting me upstairs. Quieter, the second floor bookshelves are neatly organized in a strange pattern, creating alcoves and dark corners. It seems every corner I turn offers some new genre I’d forgotten about: philosophy, gardening, detective mysteries. Fluorescent post-its color the shelves like confetti, staff recommendations leading readers places they’d never imagined. It’s as if I’m ten again, wandering children's literature at the Brown County Library, deciding which teenage hero will be my friend, which town my new home, which plot my new life.

All afternoon, I explore Tattered Cover, stories upon stories upon stories. I want to know all the characters, learn the narrative rhythm of the writers, uncover the mysteries. I read a staffer’s opinion of Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, consider some pop fiction paperback that will rot my brain, and spend more time than I should in Children’s Literature.

That first day at Tattered Cover brought out a passion for books I hadn’t seen since fifth grade. Maybe a symptom of living alone, or being without cable, or trying to become a better writer, my thirst for reading is like never before. I can’t get enough of it; I read under the covers and stay at cafes longer than I should, engrossed with fictional towns and murder-mysteries, Austen romances and teenage vampires. I analyze characters and prose, knowing exactly why I love it and how I would have done it differently.

Starting my career as a writer, about to become a storyteller myself, I see how fitting it is that I reconnected with my inner bookworm, now hopelessly enamored by books. This is who I am, who I have always been, and it seems Denver – indie bookstores and all – was just the place to remind me.

It’s Always Sunny in Denver

According to locals, Denver’s best asset is its sun. “It shines more than three hundred days a year,” they’d tell me. “More than San Diego, more than Honolulu.” Outside, a blizzard whirled past the windows as they first told me this, and I doubted them.

I grew up believing that monotony was the adverse affect of constant sun, and that we who enjoyed four seasons only did so because of snow and rain and overcast skies. Storms made for excitement; persisting through dark afternoons and snowy springs made for incurable gratitude. Without appreciating how awful life was without sun, I could never appreciate how glittering life was with it.

I grew up wary of ever-sunny paths, of their blandness, of their emptiness. Traveling shiny avenues flanked by palm trees seemed appealing until compared to the complexity of the challenging path, one requiring perseverance and resilience, one that leaves you interesting and changed. Those on the path flanked by ice and fog are stronger for keeping alive the dimming optimism through the darkest spots.

So I keep doubting – while secretly believing in – this place in the snowy Rockies, whose winters don’t feel like solitary confinement and whose summers are as reliably bright as a Pacific island. Could I really wake up most mornings greeted by warmth, no matter how cold outside? In that same day, could I also say goodnight to the sun, gracefully sliding behind the mountains, casting calm shadows through trees full of leaves or bare with snow? Could I get used to this life, soon blind to how safe and predictable my life has become?

Already I am divided between cynicism and unconditional optimism. I grew up where the sun didn’t always stay long enough to shine when I most needed it – that canoe trip, that day at Lake Michigan, Fourth of July fireworks. I learned to expect the disappointment of a rained-out afternoon, knowing that a day beginning with sun didn’t always end with it.

In Denver I wonder if the sun is a curse. Maybe one day the sun won’t shine here, and Denverites will look back and regret those wasted moments indoors. Maybe Denver’s four seasons are bland, their vibrancy having faded like a poster on a sunny wall. I worry about some Pleasantville nightmare, where dark secrets fester in the sun’s shadows, growing increasingly lethal for every day they go without exposure.

And yet, every day feels like a celebration, equally perfect for outdoor weddings and pool parties; for long walks and bike rides; for baseball games and pickup games. Everything seems possible in the light. I don’t feel the burden of overpowering the constant darkness. It’s hard to hate life when there’s no doubt of the sun’s imminent and lovely return. How can my worries not slip away with the breeze that carries through the budding trees? How can trouble seem close with clear skies that stretch to infinity?

I look back and see the highlights of my Chicago life overshadowed by a series of disappointments that left me kicking and screaming for a brighter future. So I drop the skepticism and bask in the sun, looking forward to the golden sun and blue skies that seem to promise just that.

Cafe Denver

I noticed it when I discovered 17th Street. On corners, in houses, it was unmistakable, that feeling of belonging, of good conversation, the nostalgia of college and a hint of Europe. I felt invigorated, inspired to write, and couldn’t wait to discover more. This thing that made me fall in love with Denver, that made it feel like home, is its blossoming café culture.

Denver is hardly famous for a cafe culture nor often characterized as “European.” Rocky Mountains, progressive attitudes, green space, and a western style define it – sidewalk cafes and good coffee? Maybe not. But as I walked along 17th Street that day in March, my future in Chicago now in question, I passed the independent coffee shops and they invited me in, warmed me up, and had me soon considering a future in Denver.

While each café is uniquely its own, they all share a sense of community. This is where Denver gathers, chatting away an afternoon with a friend or a dog, watching life float along the sidewalk and in the street. This is where the city reads, writes, and philosophizes, where it makes new friendships and rekindles old ones.

Denver’s café culture is locally grown; its coffee shops located in old houses and used bookstores. Mostly independent, they face little threat from those cookie-cutter corporate cafes. The shops in Denver welcome pets inside, despite the ample seating outside. They have creaky floors and fireplaces and worn-in sofas. Some are Russian with vodka-themed drinks; others are hippie with psychedelic curtains and fluorescent green walls. The baristas at Denver’s cafes ask my name and about my day, give free refills, and invite me to come again. Best of all, they recognize me when I return.

These qualities are certainly not unique to Denver, although a city with a community-centered café culture is quite telling. These cities value local businesses and encourage their success. They value neighbors and neighborhoods, leisurely afternoons and a home-away-from-home. They enjoy congregating somewhere other than bars, malls, and overpriced restaurants. They value good coffee and the simple life.

Most of the time I wrote in Chicago was at a coffee shop. There, cafes were merely a place to plug in and get my writing done. Tables were hard to come by and it often took two or three attempts at two are three different coffee chains to find one. I never felt that any place was mine, and my memories there are impersonal and replaceable.

In Denver every cafe has a table just for me and I feel comfortable taking it. I belong here and this is a community to which I want to greatly contribute. It is my home and I look forward to sharing it with you from the table of great café.