On February 7th, 2020 I was sitting in a Starbucks in the middle of a tangle of an urban somewhere in Mexico City. A ten minute walk away was the little Airbnb I was staying in. Not the kind they show on advertisements for Airbnb. But the space worked for my needs. Except for one. It didn’t have wifi. And so I found myself savoring something hot at Starbucks and availing myself of their wifi. 

I was sending an email to Andres in Peru who was developing our Last Incan Bridge tour and Reed Boat building workshop. I was contacting Adriana in Oaxaca about the details of two tours we had running that very week. And sipping my hot drink, nibbling a much too sweet, but quite delicious muffin and letting my ears be soothed by the music coming through the speakers in the ceiling. 

A song came sliding in, between emails and sips, that spoke to my ears. I stopped my doing for a moment to listen to it. The voice, the beat, the melody, they tickled something in my soul. I pulled out my multitasking iPhone and had it identify the song and added it to my Spotify playlist. 

A Song for a Season 

The song was called Seeds by a French singer named Camille. A quick little poem of two minutes and fifty seconds. 

I was in Mexico City to attend a four-day gathering of heritage textile junkies called TEXTO. There were weavers, natural dyers, felters, hat finishers, designers and embroiders from Mexico, India, Peru, Thailand, Ethiopia, Italy, Guatemala and many other countries attending. Vandana Shiva was the keynote speaker.  I knew that this event would be a watering hole for my kind of people so I threw myself into the middle of it.  

 The Chinese artisans that were to come did not show because of concerns over some virus appearing there. We were sorry to miss their presence but didn’t give it much more thought than that.  …Impossible to imagine what we’ve never known. 

The Airbnb place I’d rented was a 28 minute walk from the event. Not a pretty walk, but a fascinating one that took me under and over huge overpasses, along busy boulevards, past sidewalk food stands and through swank cobbled neighborhoods. The din of it all was in no way pleasant so I came and went each morning and night with my headphones on listening to music. In doing so I kept gravitating towards that song, Seeds. 

Morning and evening as I walked I’d anticipate that song.  You know how it is when you become addicted to a song. It is like a new lover, like an injection of sweet adrenaline, like hot chocolate on a cold morning. 

The song is about seeds of possibilities of all flavors: “Seeds of rain, Seeds of passion, Seeds of grace...Seeds of sorrow, Seeds of strain, Seeds of silence… Seeds of lovers, Seeds of glory, Seeds of what’s going to happen...Seeds of change, Seeds of change, Seeds of change”. 

That was a year ago, to the day, as I sit and write this. I think the universe sent that song as a heads up! 

That very evening at the conference a Chilean woman I’d been enjoying getting to know, a married mother of four big boys with two golden retrievers, came up to me and asked, “Are you single Eric?  ...I mean really single, no strings attached?”

 I looked at her, confused, curious, intrigued, “Um...yeah… I’m single.” My expression almost certainly broadcasting my odd mixture of feelings.  

It was true,  I was single. But that had only recently become true and my heart was still tender. I had no real desire to seek out romance or a girlfriend and was, drawing on the accumulated wisdom gained through too many separations, allowing myself a healthy pause before opening myself to such possibilities again. And regardless, she was married.

Likely taking a cue from my expression, she clarified, “It’s not for me, there is someone here I really think you should meet…” 

Well, like I said, I wasn’t looking, but I do believe in the magic hand of life and I can count the number of times someone has tried to match make for me on a carpenter’s right hand with fingers left over. There was a scent in this of the unknowable workings of a majestic universe. So I said, “Tell me about her”. 

A Two Hour Date

Two days later the Argentinian-American woman who was born in Brazil that my Chilean friend had told me about joined me for a late lunch. Her name was Teresa without an H. We spent about eight minutes on nervous pleasantries and then the conversation got pithy and fun. We had in common rich travel experiences, deep appreciation of traditional arts and textiles, Spanish and English, roots in Latin America and the US and deeper themes of love, loss, learning and growth that we weren’t afraid to talk about. The meal we were eating for lunch was secondary to the richness and realness of the feast of dialog. 

In this way soon enough a couple of hours hand passed and our plates had been cleared away. We sat with glasses of lemonade in front of us and each thought about what might be next in this meeting. 

Inside myself I looked over the situation with the cold hand of reason.  I sighed. Here was a truly interesting person, but she lived in Los Angeles and I lived in Ashland, Oregon. Not at all conveniently close. Additionally, we both traveled frequently with our work. Very tricky logistics and life is complex enough as it is. I’ve had girlfriends who live far away before. It makes for a lot of longing, loneliness and heartache. Also, I simply wasn’t looking.

 I felt quietly despondent, for it seemed cupid had wasted one of his magic arrows on us. An excitement had blossomed within me after my Chilean friend suggested we meet. One never knows what the universe is planning and I thought this meeting might have some larger, destiny-like story written into it. When it feels like that, even an inkling, yes is the right thing to say.  But I could not imagine how this story might play out beyond a fun lunch and the joy of meeting a wonderful human being.  Maybe that was enough. 

“Well...,” I said, checking  the time and thinking about dinner plans I had with a friend in a couple of hours, “maybe we should wrap this up…”

She looked at me with a quiet, quizzical fierceness in her eyes and said, “I feel like, I don’t know, I feel like there is more potential here. There is something else.”

She squared her shoulders to me from across the table. “I’ve noticed your body language, turned to the side, arms crossed, leaning backwards. What if you opened that up?”

I hadn’t noticed this at all and suddenly felt very self-conscious. I had no idea I was doing this, but I was...afraid of...actually avoiding... Cupid's arrow. I had unconsciously wrapped myself in a shield. I shrugged my shoulders to try and loosen them,  turned more towards her, relaxed my arms and laughed awkwardly. I suddenly felt very exposed. 

She sat there for a moment observing all of this, seemingly seeing something in me I could not see. Then she leaned forward just the slightest bit and extended her hand over the table. Her arm was relaxed, her pointer finger outstretched.  It was as if a gesture from a Michelangelo fresco had fluttered down into the middle of our humble table.  She left it suspended there, halfway between her and I. 

It was a simple gesture, an invitation to...what? I looked at that finger tip attached to this bright human being, this universe of the unknown sitting across the table from me. And I looked to the left towards the exit of the restaurant where I would walk out the door, catch a cab and head off into my interesting, happily planned and enjoyably predictable evening in Mexico City. Then I looked back at her finger tip...this  invitation that would expire in about 10 seconds. To my left was the comfort of the enjoyable known, for which I had no complaints, there was nothing dull there. And directly in front of me was the terrifying unknown. 

It is, I think, moments like this that really define us. You suddenly find yourself on the spot with a high stakes decision and the script is gone. How does that old saying go “separate the men from the boys”?  

I froze. 

My mind raced. Comfort or fear, you choose Eric! You’ve now got 5 seconds. Walk out the door and catch a cab, no big deal. Life goes on as you know it.  Reach out and touch this woman’s fingertip, and... who knows? My insides were in a state of turmoil and the silent pressure felt intense. I searched desperately inside for some clarity, some guidance. I should just say goodbye with a smile and head on. The meeting had been good and real and nourishing, but now it was time to go. 

Yet I lingered, awash in inner turmoil as the milliseconds went tick tick tick. Behind the static of fear I heard a deeper voice. It was asking, how long do you want fear to have the upperhand? How long do you want trepidation to determine the course of your life? How many times have you been on a threshold like this in life and shied away?  

I pushed aside the turmoil inside, found a space of silence, and then... lifted my hand from where it rested, safely tucked away on my leg…and reached slowly.  As I extended my fingertip my whole being felt as if I was stepping towards the edge of a pitch black abyss. The closer my finger got to hers, the closer I felt, body and soul, to the abyss, the utterly terrifying unknown. I’m not exaggerating, this is exactly how I felt. It is a little baffling, for this was not the first time in my life I’d touched the fingertip of a woman. And I’m hardly a highschool boy anymore trying to figure out how to put his arm around a girl on a date. But there I was, awash in fear and terrified thrill. In order to complete the journey, for my finger tip to touch hers, I had to step off the edge.

I moved my finger closer, feeling the warmth emanating off of her hand. And the very moment that I made contact was the moment I fell  into the dark abyss…

Stay tuned for Part 2