I felt a gentle tap on my shoulder and realized I hadn’t looked up or even moved in two hours.
His eyes were the kind of faint grayish blue that reminded me of my granddaddy’s. He was dressed head to toe in athletic wear and a pair of giant 1980’s headphones rested around his neck.
“I’ve never seen someone focus so intently,” he said with a little smirk. His voice was strained and whispery as he waited for my answer. “You really haven’t let up. Do you mind me asking what you’re working on?”
“Oh, hi there,” I laughed a little, startled back into reality. “Yeah, I’m working on my first book and I’m up against a pretty tight deadline.”
I assumed that might end the conversation quickly.
“Oh, I see,” he nodded. “Well, I knew you must’ve been doing something meaningful. Even as a surgeon, I don’t think I ever concentrated that hard when I was repairing hernias.”
Well now I’m intrigued.
“You were a surgeon?” I asked, looking at him and trying to guess how far into his eighties he might be.
“Yes,” he said proudly. “I was a general surgeon for more than forty years.”
“What’s your name?”
“Oh, my name is Mario. What about you?”
“I’m Laura. So what are you listening to these days, Mario?” I gestured toward the headphones around his neck.
“Always the opera,” he said, as if I should’ve easily guessed that. “My wife and I both love it.”
“How long have you been married?” I asked, already certain the number would astound me.
Mario smiled softly.
“My wife is brilliant. I met her when she was a nurse. She is always learning something…” His voice trailed off for a moment like he’d lost his train of thought somewhere inside the memory.
My curiosity about Mario and his opera soundtrack needed to know more.
“What do you think the secret to happiness is, Mario?” I asked the most Laura question of all time. Any of my people will tell you, I suck at small talk. I want to know what’s hurting you, what you are learning, and what mysteries are keeping you up at night. But something about Mario let me know he would have something worth remembering to say about this.
“Well now, that’s a very good question.” He laughed before continuing. “I think my professors were maybe the closest to having it figured out, ya know?”
He paused and I realized there were remnants of a New York accent underneath the sound of his last few decades in Birmingham, Alabama.
“When I went to the University of Georgia, I had never felt like a real person before. As a kid whose parents were immigrants from Italy, I needed a lot of help in school that I never got. In New York they didn’t care much. But when I got to the university…” he stopped himself and laughed. “Well, University of Georgia…they treated me like I was smart and a whole person. Like I had real value. They helped me so much.”
His eyes looked watery with memory and it made me emotional too for some reason.
“I actually asked my wife the other day, ‘do you think we should send the University of Georgia some money or something???,” he laughed again. “They really changed my life.”
I let that sit between us for a beat before responding.
“I love that they reminded you of your value Mario,” I said. “Clearly you are smart. You became a surgeon. So why did you think your professors had the secret to happiness?”
Mario smiled again, his light blue eyes dancing behind the answer before he even gave it.
“Well, they get to keep learning and discovering. And I believe that’s the secret to happiness. To keep finding new things that intrigue us enough that we want to figure them out.”
“Hmm,” I smiled. “I think I agree with you.”
Mario adjusted the giant headphones around his neck and grinned at me.
“Well,” he said, “you certainly look intrigued enough by whatever you’re writing to keep going. That’s a good sign.”
And just like that he stood up from the outdoor table beside me offered another little smile and a wave. He placed the old school, corded headphones back on his head and shuffled back onto the side walk. I sat there staring at my laptop no longer thinking about deadlines or edits or whether this book was good enough to exist in the world.
Instead, I thought about curiosity.
About let Mario’s words remind me the goal of a life isn’t becoming fully healed or fully impressive or fully certain.
I think it’s just about staying awake enough to keep discovering things.
New music.
New people.
New parts of yourself.
New reasons to renew our hope.
I looked back down at the manuscript that, moments before, had felt impossibly heavy.
Then I opened the pages of my book again and kept writing.
