Gone with the Miles

Every once in a while, our lives get to intersect with a stranger’s, in ways that are a little more meaningful than just holding a door for them or walking in the opposite directions of a sidewalk. Maybe a sustained conversation out of boredom, an impromptu dialogue to break the awkwardness (and curiosity), a solicited exchange of personal preferences about certain things—

nevertheless, a brief moment, passing scenes, fleeting opportunities; out of sheer chance, and maybe at times, a sprinkle of luck. Perhaps, it’s your first time stepping foot into that someplace new, and theirs too. Nothing was offered except a transient period of not having to feel so alone in a reality that is completely unknown and moving fast and loud – for there’s another passerby in this very space, at this exact time, who is open to offering a shared pause in that solitude.

They are probably not better than your existing circles – you have someone kinder, funnier, more entertaining, more compassionate, more relatable – but it does not negate the fact that they exist, at the time you probably need one the most, because nothing at that time was familiar so you’d take anything (and anyone) that offered refuge at that time.

And refuge was all you needed.

A company,

stories about foreign terrains,

a pair of ears to listen to yours.

It’s not that they carry with them a once-in-a-lifetime kind of escapade, nor life-altering adventure. Nor that they are meant to bring a defining story arc into your plot. It’s just that they happen to bring the exact lock into that particular door into your life, that nobody else has at the time, because everyone and everything that is known to you is afar.

It wasn’t a once-in-a-blue-moon kind of scenario, but it wasn’t mundane. It wasn’t the most memorable, but it was serendipitous.

It was anything but nothing. Maybe, it could be something – but nonetheless, in that moment, it was everything that each of you both had.

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Weeks, months, years from then on, you’d probably start forgetting about one another’s existence – but it does not dismiss the fact that there was one time when you wanted to absorb everything about it to remember it well. When you were—

on a boat easing through the oddly quiet river where the colourful lanterns fill up the rippled surface in Hoi An;

on a train passing by the French Riviera, exchanging thoughts about whether world peace is indeed too utopian an ideal;

wearing your skirts despite the gusting wind as you climbed up the hills covered in yellow gorse shrubs to get to Arthur’s Seat;

trying to make the best out of otherwise wearisome queue at the Heathrow Airport’s immigration desks, passing stories about legalized recreational drugs and grandfathers;

on the other train traversing the Andes, accidentally sat next to one another holding the same foreign passport;

on another train sweeping through the vast Canadian prairies, hours drifted by as you were chatting about the peculiar city that you both just left;

walking at midnight by the Thames River, two young girls feeling a little anxious about getting home safely;

reflecting on raising daughters, while climbing the arid hills together to get to the historic site of Ed-Deir at the end of the route;

sitting by an empty table at the pantry of a new office, people-watching and such before a greeting interrupts your wandering mind;

exploring the forest at one of the easternmost tips of North America, thinking how you could be so lucky that you were destined to witness such a majestic landscape;

walking across the city of football after years of unplanned friendship hiatus, reenacting the good ol’ days when you were both clumsy and unseasoned;

and there are so many more in these wilted pages that I do not wish to just vanish. To think that we had made a thing out of nothing, organically (since this seems to be the word that people are obsessed with using these days), is pretty… Inspiring?

The least I could do to thank them for giving me those hours, days, or weeks that saved me from drowning in the turbulence of uncharted waters, is probably to try to preserve their memories in the only way I know of – the only way I might do best in life.

I think, I would want to write a book about individuals I met during my time away from home.