Finding my heart’s desire in a Gualala coffee shop

On my last adventure, I came across a simple, yet refreshing find, called Trinks. Past Bodega Bay, past Jenner, past Sea Ranch on the coast of Mendocino County is a beach town named Gualala.

Perfectly located at the mouth of the Gualala River and the Pacific Ocean, Gualala got its beginnings as a logging town after the 1906 earthquake. Highway 1 runs through the middle of the unincorporated town with a population of about 1,900 people. Now, instead of lumber, tourism is the main industry.

The main strip includes two grocery stores, three quaint hotels (no Hiltons or Marriott’s here), a couple gas stations, realtors (too many to count), a couple little art galleries and Trinks.

I came by Trinks on my trek to find a hot spot. I know it’s lame. But, I was on vacation and had just a few things I needed to do over the weekend in preparation for my work week. The rental didn’t have internet services, nor did the grocery store, or the art galleries, or … the hotels did, but they wanted to charge $125 for me to use it.

Discouraged, driving up and down the Gualala strip with Justin searching for a wireless network. The only one popping up was “Trinks”. To truly realize my frustration, imagine your laptop open on the console while your 9-year-old holds in the air an iPad in one hand and an iPhone in the other. I finally stopped at the gas station and asked them what Trinks was and where I could find it.

Of all the things Trinks could have been, I was relieved it was a coffee shop. But Justin and I soon found out it wasn’t an ordinary coffee shop.

As we swung open the car doors, we could smell Trinks. My nose zeroed in on the coffee, Justin’s nose found peanut butter cookies. As I opened the front door, Justin’s jaw hit the floor. Huge peanut butter cookies were being brought out of an oven and placed next to homemade scones with fresh berries popping out of them.

Even better than the smell was the enthusiastic woman who greeted us at the register. “What brings you in this morning?” she said. My response? “ WiFi”. She laughed.

I ordered my husband a coffee and was informed that the beans were roasted locally in Healdsburg and the two scones contained “raspberries and blackberries picked straight from the bush.” Justin ordered a hot chocolate and not one, but two peanut butter cookies. She ended our conversation by giving me the WiFi password and hopes that the coffee and scones would bring us back in someday.

As Justin ate and I worked, she wandered the tables with a pot of coffee and a big smile. She had such a presence and made everyone—locals and tourists alike—feel warm and welcomed. I was awestruck by her sense of pride in her creation.

I wanted to bottle up her passion. Stash it away when I needed a motivational boost. Sell it on eBay and become a millionaire.

It certainly created a moment for self reflection. Questions filled my head on passion, value, significance. As I answered each, I thought back to a time when I had passion, value and significance. I wanted to know where it went, when it left and what I could do to bring it back. It wasn’t until I cleared my head that I realized that right now, it wasn’t about the journey, as so much as being in the present and answering the question “what is my heart’s desire?”

Not going to share with you the results of the conversation with myself, but I will share that I walked out of Trinks renewed and inspired. While a tad cliché, I guess you could say I found my heart’s desire in a Gualala coffee shop.