In the cab ride home, I was playing the “a month ago” game with myself. And the four years ago game. On top of the, “Holy cow, I didn’t think air conditioning could be too cold, but I’m getting an ice cream headache from this cab!”
Last month I was in Israel, as you may all remember. ROI120 finished, many tears were shed… Yes, yes, I know. What right did I have to be all waterworks when we sang hatikva after being the whiny introvert the day before? But I was waterworks. All these people, all these amazing people. This great city in this great country. Just sobbing and making other people cry, it is what I do best.
But Thursday night a month ago, I was enjoying a great evening with a reader in a settlement. Not at all what I imagined a settlement to be. Quite solid, 30 years old, very suburban… just instead of crossing cook county line, you cross the green line and a check point.
My hostess made homemade pizza (delish) and her husband chopped up a salad. Her two sons kept me entertained with jokes, magic tricks, and stories from the cartoon network. After the boys were in bed, we took a long walk around the neighborhood. I saw the lights of Jerusalem, the lights of Jordan, was pointed in the direction of the dead sea, heard a few gun shots, and saw people doing karaoke on the porch. Cause why not, it was a thursday.
And then? Then I collapsed into bed and got a good night’s rest. In the morning we had pancakes and drove into the city. I gave an impromptu blog lecture, cause when do I ever shut-up about the power of blogging? Their home was wonderful and they were all so welcoming. She even let me use her computer after being offline for nearly a week. That was like giving me a fix.
Four years ago… hmmm… I was 26 and some change. I’d turned 26 in Tokyo, obviously where I met the below mentioned TokyoBoy (who is actually a bit older than me.) Friday night, my house got robbed. Saturday night, I performed my one woman show. Sunday morning, I left for Japan.
A few days later in Tokyo, I met him. I was there on a business trip and he was a student. Students were my business. But any time I was alone in Tokyo, he would be there. Not in a stalker way, but in a serendipitous way. Keep in mind we were all at the same hotel, all walking to the same student center, so it wasn’t like we were running into each other in Ginza or something.
Because of the robbery, I lost quite a bit of my sense of safety. Something about running into him again and again in an unknown city, made me regain a little bit of my safety. So did being in Tokyo. Fantastic moments of serendipity. Right time, right place. And here we are, four years and some change later. Both safe and sound and strangers again.
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