Today it occurred to me , the Miracle of Meeting.
I am an American woman, thirty-five years old, born in Denver Colorado, a place you’ve probably never heard of.
You are an Indian man, twenty-six, raised in a small village in Dharmsala, in a town I can’t pronounce.
We grew up with different languages, world views, ways of life.
You work twelve-hour days almost every day and you live in the room where you work.
You ask about my job and I stammer out an answer that is evasive and confused.
I’ve spent four months abroad this year. I ask you where you’d want to travel, and you laugh, “No travel.” You say: “My life is here.”
You tell me about your family, eighteen or nineteen people living in one place. You say sometimes it’s too much, but you love it there; always something to do, people to be with.
You are happy. You say so, and I can tell. I soak it up like the sun. How many days have I spent begging (or traveling) for the simple satisfaction you radiate.
I ask your formula: “Think good thoughts, eat good food, and spend time with good people.” Then you add one more, and “Thank God for everything.” You’re careful to explain that your God is any god; the force behind it all.
Today, being with you, it occurred to me: The Miracle of Our Meeting. We should never have met, and yet….
…Here we are in this intimate way, deepening a friendship that began last December, and carries on as easily as if the year in between was one long inhale, and our reunion is the exhale.
This is the kind of bond you can’t name, but you both know it, and you know the other knows it too. Even in the silence, you both understand that you share something mutual, meaningful, and real.
Einstein (is said to have) said there are two ways to live your life, “As if everything is a miracle, or nothing is.” To be honest, this strikes me as obviously logical and overly aspirational.
But it’s quite a meditation. Here in India, I ride a motorbike every day without dying. That’s kind of a miracle.
Each afternoon, the ocean opens her arms and waves me in. Ocean. What are you? Why? How? I guess that’s kind of a miracle too.
Each evening several of us play on the beach with only the language of volleyball in common: “Serve. Score. In. Out. Net. Pass. Change. Game.” Miracle.
Right at this moment, I’m sharing my heart through electrons all over the world and I don’t even really know what an electron is. Miracle.
And I have friend in India with whom I connect on a level larger than logic; I guess that’s the level they call Love. Miracle.