Intersections

Sitting in a cafe, eating breakfast, we start talking to the vaguely familiar-looking young woman next to us. Find out she lived in the small northern California town (Guerneville) that Gary did, during the same exact years.

Farther along in the conversation, I find out that she roomed with someone i worked with, many moons ago. She knew all the writer/artist/teacher folks I hung out with at the time. Small world, yes, but no huge revelation. These minor coincidences happen on a regular basis as you move across the globe.

As we paid our bill and said goodbye, Gary leaned across the table and whispered to me, "These things happen in three's."

She was the smallest of the trio of angels.

The next morning, I wanted to revisit a guesthouse I used to stay at on a regular basis when I'd come to the city for a night on my own. I had been dreaming about their steamed veggies and eggs with sesame seeds and brown bread (I know, a mere ten days doesn't justify western food cravings but what can I say? Thailand isn't famous for its breakfast).

We sit down, take off the backpacks, glance at the menu, order tea and coffee. As we look around the room our eyes settle on the older man at the table next to us, sitting practically right beside me.

"Willard!" we both shout in unison.

Almost exactly a year ago, a close friend (and frequent visitor to Southeast Asia) invited us over for dinner to meet an old friend of his who was visiting from Thailand where he had permanently settled, with a wife and young daughter.

The dinner went late into the wee hours. Willard: curious about life and the people around him, with the appropriate amount of eccentricity that this kind of curiosity requires. Willard tossed out questions that demanded a long pause before responding. After a night with Willard, a slivered crack appears in your world-window and your vision is never quite the same.

We vowed to keep in touch and, of course, never kept the promise. Email just doesn't bring the same magic.

So here was Willard, one year later. sitting in one of hundreds of cafes, the one we happened to choose. He was in Chiang Mai for just a few days to get some dental work done and then he was heading back to his hometown of Nakhon Sawan, just north of Bangkok.

We sat at the table long after the coffee got cold, talking about education and travel and culture shock. We met him again that night for dinner and the conversation continued. We said goodbye knowing we might not see him again. Strange, synchronistic encounters usually work like that.

The next morning we made a bee-line for Daret's, the cheapest breakfast in town (eggs, side meat, toast, coffee, and juice... $1), before hitting the employment pavement. This time we didn't even have time to put down our packs. Standing in front of our chairs, we stared dumbfounded at the occupant at the next table. Looking up, he caught our eyes and froze, equally slack-jawed.

Gareth. Picture Russell Crowe (below-the-neck ponytail, rugged forehead, piercing blue eyes, thick brows) and you have a picture of him.

We were a week into our trip to Guatemala when we first met Gareth. We had just barely lost the neatly tucked regard of the fresh-off-the plane. The farther our psyches got from our daily lives, the more liquid we became. We shed who we were and were open to anybody we could become. A beautiful state of mind that had been sorely lacking in my life the previous 12 months due to the absence of any significant traveling experiences.

There in San Pedro, a small village perched on a hillside above the brilliant blue of Lake Atitlan, we remembered to breathe.

And at Nick's Place, with a view of volcanoes all around, we fell into a rag-tag group of nomads traveling the route from Tijuana to the southern tip of Argentina. Six months, nine months, a year on the road. Either that or working in Oaxaca or Antigua or Cusco and taking a well-deserved break for some R&R.

Several days and plates of food and cold beers later, we were still in San Pedro. The town had that kind of compelling somnolence to it. The whole group was caught in its spell as well. And Gareth was the focal point of the group, with his guitar and world-weariness that was oddly idealistic. He made a mark on us and we left San Pedro in a subtle state of pilgrimage. The beginning phrases of a question had been posed, in this dirt road village, in the company of these travelers. Our eyes were now open for the first few strains of an answer.

Before we had even boarded the return flight or unpacked a suitcase, words like go back again began to surface.

Of course the best laid plans are made in the embrace of a faraway land. The intoxicating magic of reinvention takes hold and suddenly anything is possible.

But the words continued to echo.

We shared several meals and life-confirming conversations with Gareth and his partner Nic here in Chiang Mai. They listened to us when we somewhat apologetically told them about our plans to abandon Thailand and scout out Vietnam. Are we crazy? we asked them. and they shook their heads calmly like dual Buddhas and said, Of course you're going to Vietnam. We bought one-way tickets the next day.

And then we said goodbye and promised to keep in touch. But without the volcano peaks or temple spires or the ecstatic, humid exchange over a table of bottles and plastic plates, it won't be the same. Better to hope for another crazy moonlit fork in the road and leave it at that.

Three angels looking down on us. I can't tell whether their expressions are rapt or ironic, but I do know that all three of them are smiling.