The Epiphany Project
I spend each morning at The Village Buzz Café in Greenwood Lake, NY. It has become a second home for me, satisfying a retiree’s desire for good company and nutritious food. It’s a perfect way to begin my day. As I became a fixture, set up in the back corner, I began collecting friendships. Some were fleeting. They were folks on the way to work and could only pause long enough to affirm that we had both showed up another day. Then off they went clutching a bagel and coffee. These encounters over the years began to deepen as passing greetings evolved into fondness and even love. Our mutual histories unfolded in fits and starts arriving one unexpected day as a real sense of knowing each other. If one of us missed a morning, we heard about it the following day. Jamie, the owner, would jokingly mention that she thought about alerting the police when my seat remained unfilled. It gave us both a sense that something was off in the world if the usual suspects failed to appear in their places at expected times. This arrangement warmed the part of me that had been longing for community and connections that were natural and honest.
A sense of place is vital for my spirit and, while my cottage perched on a mountain minutes away was my foundation, the Buzz was the portal to the village. Here it was that people from every walk of life wandered in, sighing over the aroma of bacon and fresh baked muffins. The whole business was fascinating to observe from my corner. It presented a sense of continuity and shape around my life. Names attached to faces and particles of personal history slipped out in bits and pieces. I began to hear about the children in the care of these new friends and a good amount about dogs and cats rescued by them. I admired them for their commitment to those unable to take care of themselves. These came also in the form of homeless adults who dropped by. The tiny bathroom at the café was, for some, the only warm spot to have a wash. This was never questioned or scorned upon. They were as much a part of the cafe’s life as I. Free food was often offered to those in need. Occasionally it was accepted, though I observed a sense of pride over-riding raw hunger at times. This was the real world, I thought. It’s where I belong.
It was here that I came upon the idea for Conversations That Matter, a one-on-one coaching practice that was to occupy lots of my time and energy for years to come. The notion emerged from the acquaintances I made while enjoying my breakfast. I found myself paying close attention to the regular and irregular visitors. Something about their repeated appearances allowed me to see more deeply into their characters. I started practicing, what I later referred to as Compassionate Listening. I guess I had read the phrase somewhere and it seemed to me to be the perfect description of what was going on. Somehow, I was getting a more layered appreciation of several of the regulars. The outer performances became more transparent and, like a miner, I was able to get at some precious ore buried deep inside them. This seemed to occur without much ado. I recognized that paying attention was reaping benefits. It seems most of us are unused to being attended to. Experiencing eye contact and non-judgment caught us all by surprise and wells of information began to pour forth. Casual encounters morphed into expected appearances. We started to miss each other when the morning ritual was disrupted by absence.
Then there was the hugging. It’s hard to say exactly how it began. I’m a natural hugger and I guess it became part of our daily Buzz greeting. Some of us were already doing lots of hugging but it seemed to catch on. A few of the young people who worked part time at the Buzz got into the act. Some were hesitant with “real” hugs; the ones achieved with two arms wrapped solidly around the other. A few committed only one arm at first and eventually took on the whole deal. It was infectious. I saw others hugging with enthusiasm and even joy. Strangers to the café looked on in side glances. Were they feeling left out? I chose to think so and we began offering hugs to them as well. It was one of the ways we chose to create a sense of community.
A dour young man was occupying my seat one morning. This was okay with me. On the way to another table I crossed paths with Katie, one of the cooks. We went directly into a clinch and reaffirmed that the globe was still spinning with us on it. The man in the corner spoke up. “What do you have to do in this place to get a hug? Pay extra?” I had already taken a seat next to him. “No,” I replied. “They’re free. You want one?” He thought for a brief moment. “Yeah.” He stood and we embraced. A conversation got started. It was a dark day for him. Job lost with the NYC Police because he was on a bi-polar medicine that ruled out carrying a weapon. Verbal abuse with his wife got him chucked out of the house. “I deserved it,” he said. “I hurt people with my words.” The only offer he had for work was with his father whom he despised. “Can’t work with him. No way!” We spoke for an hour and he had to go. I never saw him again, but think of him often.
A homeless woman who showed up pretty regularly was found dead in the car she used as a home. A young man who joined me for breakfast on and off for a couple of years got to be a special addition to my life. He was the son of a good friend and we hit it off. Eventually he agreed to collaborate with a dream I had of commissioning a sculpture. We planned it over breakfast with drawing and research into Lakota Indian traditions. Within a year, he created a beautiful plan and he went ahead and built it out of steel. We erected it on my property oriented to the four directions. It has his name on the border and he told me that it was the first time he ever got name credit for a creation. It is now how I remember his sweet crooked smile and wry wit. He died quickly of an inoperable tumor. The Buzz was our safe place to plan a future. What we got was irreplaceable.
It’s been more than a decade now. Many have gone for good, after changing us for the better. Babies have been born; new jobs started; relationships born. Some broken. And the cycle continues celebrating the everyday, here at the Buzz.
Why Epiphanies?
Ulysses author James Joyce liked to carry a small note pad with him as he walked through Dublin. His habit was to stop when he saw something he considered an image with implicit meaning.
He would stop and hastily record the moment and then move on. They were, to him, like photographs of life. Later, they might show up in one of his novels or short stories. He called these captured scenes epiphanies. The word is often used in religious rituals to depict a sacred message represented by an image.
In a similar way, the following epiphanies from everyday life represent moments of revelation to me. They attempt to capture some recognizable essence in the lives of the people, places and creatures I love. Though not complete portraits, they reflect my personal sense of the characters collected here. The verses attempt to portray the “is-ness” of them, as Joyce would say. These impressions, I discovered, were as much about me as the subjects. It got me thinking about how much our personal development depends on the relationships we allow ourselves.
Some of the characters depicted in the epiphanies are long gone from my life but still live in my essential nature. Others walk into my life every day as I enjoy my coffee in The Village Buzz Cafe. The epiphanies affirm who I am, as I exist only in relation to those in my wider community. I offer the following with love to all those who have shaped me and given definition to my life.
Dick Piazza – April, 2017