Hanging out with beautiful souls at an idiosyncratic coffee shop: vibey.

Pictures of clustered shoes: vibey.

A knit beanie: vibey.

A horrendous illustration by the inner machinations of my soul’s interpretation of my surroundings: vibey. 

A honey-influenced, lavender-stitched coffee that is, at its root, just nasty: vibey.

To “vibe” with something has become an increasingly common state of being among today’s youth—myself included. Yet, I am completely lost as to what it means to “vibe.”

How is it that perceivably negative experiences are just as vibe-able as positive ones? How is it that my soul seems to embrace something that my arms would hesitate to entangle? How is it that vibing is not always requited nor reciprocal? What even is a vibe?

These are the questions I dare not seek an answer to. 

As I have ventured on my quest to enhance my vibey-ness, my cognizance has discovered that a vibe isn’t so base as to be confined by a string of explanatory parables. Vibes are something you just have to coexist with; after all, they’re your aura’s audience to ambiance. 

Vibes are simply just vibes; they’re how you feel about something and how you react to it. Their importance and credibility are disputable—a paradoxical argument considering vibes are unique to their origin. To me, vibes are valid sources of reasoning. I see them as under-developed premonitions of morals.

The comfort and trust which I attribute to my vibes act as footholds for my imagination and logic. If something is vibey, I’ll continue to vibe with it. If it isn’t, I won’t. The complexity of vibes’ nature allows for this simplistic response to both challenge and sanction.

I am unashamed to admit that I almost always tend to follow where my vibes lead me. 

Whether it be into a scratchy, oversized shirt from Goodwill or a disquisition on how feminism operates within a religious setting, I will continue to hold my vibe’s hand no matter which street it helps me cross. 

Sunday, October 27th was a day of vibe—perhaps the best example of a vibey experience in my repertoire of memory. It started off with me naturally waking up at 9:30 AM: an undeniably vibey arrival to the world. After showering, doing laundry, and other menial tasks, I had embarked on a journey to The Sparrows Coffee & Tea & Newsstand to bask in the presence of three friends: a vibey location holding three of the vibiest people I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. I read, drew, sipped coffee, and laughed. All throughout, inhaling and exhaling pure vibes. 

Flying from the nest, two of us ventured into the Grand Rapids Feminist Film Festival and spent an hour or so enriching ourselves. As afternoon seeped into evening, the vibes of the day were pixelated into forever-lasting photos. 

When I drifted through the back door of my house, I sat down with a TLC-seasoned grilled cheese and began to write. My eventful day tabulated itself onto my screen; Times New Roman italicized in vibe and bolded in reminiscence. 

I like to consider myself a solicitor of vibe expertise; although I’m a master, I still have no idea what a vibe really even is, and I don’t want you to tell me.