Death Café New York City with Audrey Pellicano and Nancy Gershman
A write up of Death Cafe New York City
By wisewidow
Death Café New York City started off with soft jazz and carpeting, as 35 attendees entered the brightly lit basement of an IHOP (International House of Pancakes) in the West Village. The demographics (based on evaluations from 21 out of 35) showed a nice 50/50 split between males and females as well as a 50/50 split between the Under- and Over 50 set, with an additional attendee falling somewhere between 18-24 and another at 85+.
Faith/religion/beliefs included: Agnostic, Humanist, Atheist, Open-Minded, Jewish, Spiritual, Catholic, Buddhist, Interfaith, including a follower of Baruch Spinoza, the philosopher.
Serendipitously, we sat three film people together, one of whom is eager to film fellow attendees at the September Death Café. We also had a fair share of nurses, music therapists and psychologists in addition to poets and philosophers.
Interestingly, some evaluations reflected a discomfort around initiating free-flowing conversation in intimate groups of four, such as “want to share (or sum up) with the whole group;” “would like to switch groups like speed dating;” “no structure;” and “prefers a circle.” But for all seven of our Death Cafés, conversation starts with a bullet. So going forward, Audrey plans to pause the conversation once everyone is seated -for just a minute or two - to gently explain the salon model to the newbies.
In a classic move we call “Power to the people!”, we are encouraging August attendees to race to our Death Café Facebook page to write down some of the brilliant nuggets heard or said that evening… lest they forget!
The plan is to compile and categorize these priceless nuggets into a special page on our MeetUp site – one we will of course call “Overheard Nuggets from Death Café New York City.” One nugget that still rings in my ear was made by a woman - who since her 20s - has been afraid of her own death. This is what I overheard:
“I must be more self-centered than other people,
but what I have always been terrified of is not existing.
Afraid that it could happen at any time.”