I'm at Beanocchio's on the upper east side. It's 3:35pm. I've ordered a large ice coffee and a breakfast taco. The lady behind the counter didn't want to make the "breakfast" taco for me because it's 3:35pm. That's not "breakfast" time. She was all adamant. Her head tilted a few times while she said "no" but the guys behind the counter looked at my dejected face and overruled her. Sometimes you win; even if winning is a breakfast taco in the afternoon.
I like this place. It evokes a bizarre, fairytale-like atmosphere that is oddly inviting while it also ensures you can keep up with the latest professional soccer game. A reasonably sized TV screen hangs above an antique piano which is covered with books in the back of the place. On the screen, the men race back and forth. I barely glance. I'm not even remotely interested but I do like the sound of the cheering fans. It's a kind of white noise to me and it makes focusing on reading or writing or whatever I'm about to do that much easier.
Prior to Beanocchio's, I stopped to pet a cat that was tethered outside a storefront. I hate seeing that but not much I can do. She's a white cat made gray from the city. I feel bad for her so I give her some attention which she enjoys a little too much. I feel guilty about having to leave her but I do. She stares after me.
Needless to say, I had to wash my hands. So, I make my way to the bathroom and I see that the door is slightly ajar. I take this is as the universal sign that no one is in it. I open the door and I hear a heavy new york accent screech, "someone's in heeyaaaah!". In my somewhat less obvious new york accent I shoot back, "close the door then, why dontcha?". I wait and when the bathroom is free, I feel a twinge of guilt again. An old woman comes out. I mean, she's crazy and that's clear enough from the colors, patterns and layers of her clothing but she is old and God knows what's happened to her (or what she did in that bathroom). One thing is certain, I need to wash my hands and ingest more caffeine. Luckily, the bathroom is intact and the coffee is in hand.
I settle at a communal table that has a one woman reading at it. There are stacks of books by her side. Library books. At least a dozen with titles like: "Rethinking", "Spiritual Power" and "The Art of Happiness". My breakfast taco arrives. I take out my notebook and pen to write a joke or something. Something. Nothing comes. I glance at the serene woman seated next to me with her self-help books. I decide to ask her if she is capable of reading all those books at the same time. She grins and says "Oh, yes! Pieces of them"! She's a well maintained woman in her late 60's or early 70's. She's in beige and khaki colored clothing. Definitely a midwesterner. I tell her I'm a "one book at a time" person. I'm like this with men too but that's another story. For whatever reason, she takes my one question as an invitation for an actual conversation and since I don't know what I'm writing or what I'm about to write about, I go with it. She seems eager to chat but I wasn't so sure I was. Lacking joke-y jokes or inspiration, I go with it. A shelf with a blue plastic pony and an assortment of stuffed animals witnesses the scene.
Her name was Ann. She and her husband were married for 30 years and then he left her for another woman. Instead of falling apart, she took classes, traveled to South America and India. She never worked while she was married but she fell into a job at a library. Over the years her job descriptions became more prominent. She raised four adult children--one of whom, a daughter, now has cancer. She came to New York to visit that child. I could understand why she was reading the books and why she might need to talk to a stranger.
"There are no accidents. Everything happens for a reason", she said.
I can't tell you how many times I've heard this (and I'm sure you have too) but in that moment, in the back of Beanocchio's, I believed her.
She asked me if I needed healing. Do I need healing? I hadn't said anything. Seems odd, right? I'm just a woman eating a breakfast taco, having an ice coffee about to maybe write some jokes and didn't she have enough on her plate with her sick daughter? But I said, "Yes, who doesn't need healing?" Then, with my permission, she gently placed her hands on my head and I felt a very warm and caring energy. It was maybe a minute. Nothing was said. She removed her hands and smiled.
It healed my heart. It just did. That was it.
There really wasn't more to say after that. She had to go.
And just like that, I stared after her like the cat. Just with a smile.
