Wholesome Conversations at Whole Foods
I don’t shop at Whole Foods. I go for the wholesome conversations.
I work from my apartment a lot. Sometimes it feels like I barely leave it.
The other day, in the late afternoon, I had to get out. I felt a little lonely and wanted to work somewhere with people surrounding me. I’m very particular about where I go when I work in public. It’s all about the vibes for me.
I finished some writing in the late morning, so I didn’t require a quiet environment. I decided to go to the Whole Foods Market a mile from my apartment. They play their music just loud enough where you can’t focus for more than two hours. It opened in March 2017. It’s enormous, probably larger than malls in some towns. I sat on a sofa, sipping an Americano, near the coffee bar—the roaster is actually in the building! There’s a large space with tables made from refurbished wood and outlets within an arm’s reach of wherever you sit.
Don’t be afraid to talk to strangers.
After I finished performing a Wikipedia deep dive, I pulled up Twitter on my computer.
“What’s Twitter?” the old man sitting on the sofa across from me asked aloud. I lifted my head up from my screen. He held a magazine in his hands. We made eye contact.
“Twitter?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he responded with furrowed eyebrows. I looked down at my screen again. What a coincidence. I laughed.
“Well, actually, I have it on my computer right now.” I rose from the sofa and sat next to him. I later learned his name was Tom. His magazine was open to a page with a big blue bird. “This is Twitter right here.”
“Oh, wow!” he laughed. I pulled my phone from my pocket, opened the Twitter app, and began demonstrating.
“Here, let’s take a photo together,” I suggested. He smiled and pointed at himself in selfie-mode. I posted it. “See, now that I’ve tweeted it, everyone can see this.”
“Okay!” He grinned from ear to ear. His amusement was a sight to see. It made me feel joyful inside, like I showed one of my nephews something new in life. His blissfulness was contagious. “So that’s what Trump does all the time?” I nodded and explained the list on the left—those are topics that people are tweeting about.
“Twitter’s great—but it can be toxic and real negative though. There are a bunch of people who just troll; they’re mean to others,” I warned.
“That’s what trolling is? I’ve heard that before.” He bobbed his head up and down as if he had a revelation. “A troll like under a bridge who doesn’t let people pass.”
“That’s exactly what it is,” I laughed.
“You did a really great job of explaining this to me. Now I know what Twitter is. Are you a teacher?”
“No. I’m a writer and a bartender.” His eyes widened and his torso jumped.
“Really? What kind of writer? Like writing a book?”
“Yup. I have a book coming out at the end of the month,” I confirmed. His elation shot up another level. He smiled even bigger. “It’s called Homeless but Human.” I opened to the Amazon page. He leaned over more to look at it.
“Wow. And this is about a time when you were homeless?” I nodded. His response fascinated me. Most times when strangers see my book, they automatically think it’s fiction or researched non-fiction about the overall topic of homelessness. The genre of memoir is an afterthought. What I haven’t mentioned yet, is the appearance the old man.
His clothes were raggedy and dirty. His thin gray hair was unkempt. Until this point, people around us have looked at him skeptically. When Tom sat down initially, he asked another guy sitting on the sofa if it was alright if he sat there. The guy was overly polite to him.
I knew Tom wasn’t homeless. How? He didn’t have any bags with him—a nuance I picked up. He informed me that he lived in assisted living nearby. He recently had two strokes and when he was in the hospital, no one thought he was going to live, so they didn’t plan where he’d live after. He ended up in assisted living. He planned to move to Manhattan, KS and teach at Kansas State University. He had a PhD in psychology.
“Yeah, I wanted to learn about how it felt to live homeless, so I voluntarily did it,” I said.
“Wow. I used to be homeless a long time ago. Did you stay at one of the missions?”
“Sort of—”
“When I had the strokes and was in the hospital, the big guy came to me. He said, ‘Tom, you’re going to get through this. You need to think positive and believe.’” I leaned back.
“Really?” I asked. Tom nodded and continued. I could sense the attention around us. I noticed a few wandering eyeballs from people at the nearby tables, sitting in front of their computers. They all had their headphones on, yet could observe our conversation.
“Mhm. It was like he put his hand on my forehead. I’m Catholic. You must be Catholic too—to do something like that.”
I fumbled a bit. “Yeah, I mean I’m spiritual I would say.”
“But you grew up Catholic didn’t you?”
“Uh, yeah.”
He smiled. “Well thank you for teaching me about Twitter. I really appreciate it. Now I know what it is!” He belly-laughed. “Thank you for talking with me. It means a lot.”
“Of course. No problem!” I swung my backpack around my shoulder. We shook hands and he thanked me again.
“That was a really great conversation. Thank you,” he repeated with a serious face.
I nodded with a soft smile and walked towards the door. My body felt lighter than I could remember.
Don’t be afraid to have deep conversations.
I couldn’t help but notice how similar Tom and I were. I went to Whole Foods because I wanted to be surrounded by other people. He was there for the same reason. He hoped that someone would talk to him. He reminded me of some of the guys I met in the homeless shelter. They just wanted someone to have a normal conversation with—who would listen and not prejudge. Tom was lonely.
He talked more about his spirituality. I was genuinely interested. I feel like people try to evade other people once they bring up the topic, but I leaned in. “Cooky” might be a term people use to describe Tom. We’re told our entire lives what to do and what to believe. When someone goes outside those parameters, they’re quickly dismissed. Tom described to me what he believed happened during the recovery of his strokes. Who am I to tell him that didn’t happen?
Our conversation brought back a lot of my memories of telling people I lived voluntarily homeless—in particular—when I returned. People looked at me like I was crazy. Their confused and disgusted reactions were seared into my mind. My confidence was at an all-time low at that point. It devasted me. They looked at me like I was doing something wrong. No one understood. No one could wrap their head around why I would do it. I sensed this in Tom. People don’t understand him, and they’re not willing to take the time to either. This guy was over-the-moon enthused about our chat.
Tom and I’s conversation reminded me to be more human. To be myself. Don’t care about what all those headphone-wearing people on their computers think. Don’t think like everyone else because they’re just thinking what they’re told to believe. Don’t feel guilty about wanting and searching for more.