“Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.”
— Anne Herbert
Penn Station, New York City, noon, the beginning of summer. Eighty degrees: A perfect day. Everyone who can be outside is outside. But I have to go in to catch the train back to Jersey. I am not at full sprint, but I am moving, hungry. No breakfast, no lunch. A morning consult brings me in once a month to YAI/National Institute for People with Disabilities. I’ve done it hundreds of times. Winters, summers, I know my way around Penn Station. I have it down to a science. I get a sandwich – make the train.
There is a deli near the Seventh Avenue exit that has the best grilled vegetable panini sandwich I’ve ever had. I swear I would do the consult just to buy this sandwich.
The staff at YAI/NIPDD is eager, ask good questions and look to apply their newfound knowledge. The YAI agency works with everyone from high-risk infants to the homeless. They are dedicated. I am with them sharing what I know, but mostly I am thinking about the panini.
At the deli I get in the rear of the long line. The glass-case sampling is a marvel to look at. The front of the case is beveled out toward the line. We can lean over and salivate to the California / avocado wrap, or the Southwestern chicken and balsamic salad. Ahh, there it is, vegetable panini.
A couple joins in behind me, pointing and commenting and I overhear their conversation.