C O L L I S I O N S
Collisions are the unplanned moments that make travel matter. A conversation that shifts something, a stranger who becomes a mirror, a place that hands you a piece of yourself you didn't even know was missing.
Each impact reveals a truth, leaves its mark, deposits residue meant to shape not only how we move but who we become.
COLLISION 00010
FROM A SEAT I WAS TOO GOOD TO OCCUPY
While I initially launched the Collisions series as textural evidence for travel’s transformative power at work in my own life and in the next ripple out beyond mine, I know it is much bigger than just a personal series of proof points.
What started as a project to simply notice, catalogue and celebrate travel’s touch – all of its coincidences, nudges and encounters – has evolved into a mounting ambition to scale and mobilize a bigger movement to recognize and spread the joy of travel. My experience is, after all, just one tessera in the larger mosaic.
Collisions are the unplanned moments that make travel matter. A conversation that shifts something, a stranger who becomes a mirror, a place that hands us a piece of ourselves we didn't even know was missing. Each impact reveals a truth, leaves its mark, deposits residue meant to shape not only how we move but who we become.
Before I ever tackled the topic of collisions themselves, I wanted to lay out a runway of them. I suspected that each one, and then each one alongside the other, could far better demonstrate my intent than mere words and a philosophical framework alone.
It wasn’t until I started putting them to paper that the full potency of collisions became abundantly clear. They are signals, catalysts, forced time-outs, a-has, McGuffins, redirects, jumpstarts, off-ramps and on-ramps. They are inflection points, pivots and validation.
They arrive without warning to affect us. They have surprisingly sneaky reverberations that wash over us at some indeterminate point in time after impact, after the collision in its original form has struck. In every collision I’ve shared, there has been an exchange of joy in the moment, but there has also been a rush of joy at the point of resurface, reflection and reapplication.
Collisions are extraordinarily regenerative which suggests to me they really could be divine, the universe’s intervention and, most of all, truly all ours to hold and recast.
An unbelievable thing happened when I started writing this piece. A random encounter I had on a trip I took to Stockholm two summers ago mysteriously slid into view. That would make a good Collision, I thought. I stopped, made note of it in my content calendar and continued writing.
But then I realized it’s not meant for June 23, it’s meant for today. I take myself back to July 2024.
I was miserably hungover after an overindulgent dinner at Ekstedt. My United 1K status didn’t load in the SAS system so I was assigned a window seat in the back row of the plane for the two-and-a-half-hour connecting flight to Zurich. I was all shades of furious and feeling sorry for myself like only an entitled travel brat could.
Then an Asian man and his young son sat down in the back row with me. They spoke no English. The boy was maybe five or six years old. As our wheels lifted up, the father pointed out the window to the boy, speaking excitedly, I can only guess, about the buildings, the shrinking city below and then the clouds.
The more the father spoke, the more the boy sat up straighter and straighter in his seat. He giggled. He clapped his hands together. Their heads swiveled from the window to each other and back again. They embraced. Now, they were both clapping and giggling.
And on the inside, so was I.
From a seat I thought I was too good to occupy, I watched as this moment of joy and discovery played out just next to me. I have taken off hundreds of times before but never with a heart that felt as light as mine did that morning.
Now, as I try to still a quivering lower lip, I can finally see that collision for the perfectly timed gift it was.
Then, and most certainly right now.
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THE MOST IMPORTANT ONE OF ALL
Quintonil was one of the first reservations I locked in before booking my flight to Mexico City. Every indicator pointed to it being a meal I would not soon forget. It sits at number three on The World’s 50 Best Restaurants list and has two Michelin Stars. It was a calculated, must-do splurge in a global food capital known for tremendous flavor across all price points.
I arrived early and was invited to sit down in their small but cozy lobby for a pre-lunch cocktail. I went for the Negroni Atocpan which substituted mezcal redistilled with Atocpan mole for traditional gin. It was the perfect mood-setter matching both the taste and style that was artfully tucked in behind the textures, details and smells wafting in elegant but animated unison all around me.
Just before I was to be seated, I handed my jacket and my Untethered Traveler branded shopper over to the staff for safe keeping behind the front desk. I glided over to my seat at the chef’s counter with a giddy but act-like-you’ve-been-there-before anticipation.
Once settled the Maître D’ made a friendly observation about my cocktail, surmising based on my order, we would hit it off just right since it combined two of his favorite things in the world: the Negroni and Mole. I earnestly agreed, sharing those two are a few of my favorites as well.
We took care of the usual pre-meal questions. Still or sparkling? Any allergies? Which wine-pairing? “The Mexican one,” I answered of course. And then one more final albeit less typical one: was I comfortable eating insects? I hesitated only at how casually the question had been laid out before me. Not thrown off so much by the question itself as the graceful delivery of it. “Sure,” I heard myself saying. Rationalizing later that if I’m going to let any kitchen serve me bugs, Jorge Vallejo’s Quintonil would be one of them.
The counter to my left and right started to fill up with other patrons as the kitchen in front of me ramped up in gusto to meet the new diners. It was a front row seat to the theatre of purpose that no matter how many times I occupy it, never seem to be enough. Behind every brush of trout, placement of a flower, dusting of the plate was unparalleled fastidiousness and palpable passion. It was a high-stakes reminder that to do what we love takes focus of will and talent.
I started a friendly conversation with a fellow Chicagoan who had been seated next to me. Then, just before our first course and pairing, the Maître D’ returned.
“I noticed,” he started, “that you collect pins.” The Untethered Traveler shopper I handed over before sitting down had a pin from every country I had visited as the Untethered Traveler – thirteen in all – tacked to it.
“But,” he lingered for effect, “you’re missing the most important one of all.”
He reached up and unfastened the Quintonil pin from the lapel of his jacket. I was too stunned to do anything but watch as he carefully handed it over to me. It all felt like it was happening in slow motion. As I fingered the pin, thanking him profusely, I felt a rush of chills go up and down my spine.
It was such a simple, heartfelt gesture – the perfect collision. It was also a remarkable gift. I had the pin, yes, but to have had that exchange then and there? To have felt seen and understood? Well that was honestly one of the more exhilarating rushes I’ve ever felt since stepping into this role.
What followed was plate upon plate of culinary genius, a series of love letters to Mexico’s traditions and tastes. There were long, lingering pauses between bites that still make my shoulders drop, sips of truly phenomenal Mexican wine I’m so grateful to have discovered and delightful travel and food banter with Ziyi, my seatmate.
But the moment the Maître D’ handed me that pin?
That wasn’t just a thrilling act in the theatre of purpose.
That was why I travel.
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HEART OF GOLD
It was a brisk, sunny autumn afternoon in Kyoto. I had fallen in love with the city the moment I arrived and every breath and step I took there made me feel like I was floating, suspended in an effortless flow.
My spirits were high that Sunday even though my time in Kyoto was coming to an end. I was grateful to be out and about taking in Kyoto’s Old Town charm with hungry, wide-open eyes.
As I strolled down Pontocho Alley, a walk I had taken my first night in town but much, much later in the evening, I saw it come to life through a new set of characters and colors. Now there were children screeching in delight from a nearby playground and young locals soaking up the last of their weekends along the river’s edge. The whole scene unfolded through vibrant red and yellow leaves framed against a brilliant blue sky.
It was a technicolor snapshot in time, a moving postcard I pressed deep into my memory as I walked further down the passageway. As I made my way to nowhere in particular, I passed a man playing Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold” on his acoustic guitar. I love that song. And as I walked on I realized I was humming it along with him.
It made me smile.
I didn’t know his story. But I had to imagine he was out there on a Sunday afternoon because that was his calling. I admired the bravado and simplicity of that.
And… he was really good.
I stopped, retraced my steps and dropped a handful of coins into his guitar case.
I didn’t want to make a big deal out of it. I just wanted to buy him a cup of coffee. Most of all, I wanted to make sure he felt heard that day. Sometimes I think that’s more rewarding than anything – an acknowledgement that our art exists. And that we exist alongside it.
He called after me to thank me and asked me where I was from. When I said, “Chicago,” he broke into the Blues. Now he was the one smiling.
And that made me smile again too.
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THE ANSWER TO HIS QUESTION
I typically keep to myself when I travel. While I don’t go out of my way to avoid eye contact, I also don’t go out of my way to make it either. Until thinking about it now, I honestly don’t know what mix of ingredients has to come together just so for a conversation with a total stranger on the road to materialize.
Engaging creators, waitstaff, artisans and shopkeepers is different. Those conversations come more naturally to me, born from a curiosity and hunger to hear more about others’ origin stories, calling to craft and purpose.
The people behind the taste are such a rich and fascinating part of the full experience that I can’t help but get inquisitive and talkative around them. They always make the difference between logging a moment in time with food, art or drink and impressing a lasting memory. Dozens of qualifying candidates come rushing at me now – a bartender in Luxembourg, a waiter in Seoul, a barista in Rome.
The encounters I have with other locals or travelers like me, the other patrons I’m sitting elbow-to-elbow with at a dining counter, dimly lit bar or community breakfast table take shape differently, maybe even a bit more mysteriously.
When I travel I must operate under a sneaky, savvy sixth sense. While I deliberate with myself about what and usually how much to order, it runs, without my knowing, on auto-pilot in the background sizing up the souls and situation around me. If the program runs without encountering a red flag, I soften and let my guard down.
That’s when a narrow gateway to potential connection opens up just a crack. It’s wild really what happens when one of us, me or them, dares to step on through.
In the week and a half that I’d been traveling in Vietnam I hadn’t chatted much if at all with strangers until I got to the counter at Anan Saigon. A story in taste all of its own, Anan Saigon is a sensational one-Michelin-star treat for the senses in Ho Chi Minh City. If one could taste color, they would taste it here.
At some point, when the spell Taste had cast over me broke a bit, I noticed I was sitting next to a young man in his late twenties. Just like with so many of the other collisions I’ve had, I don’t know exactly what sparked our conversation.
He was young, facing a career inflection point of his own, and enjoying an extended layover in Ho Chi Minh City between his family in Singapore and his home in Los Angeles. At one point, as we traded life and travel stories back and forth, he asked me a question I wasn’t expecting.
“Why do you pick the countries you visit?” he asked.
Not even sixty days laid off, still interviewing for a slew of roles I had no business pursuing, I was and am still shocked at how quickly and resolutely I answered.
“Food,” I said. “I go where I want to taste.”
And there it suddenly was.
This conversation with a young stranger, my first of consequence and meaning in days, from a country half way around the world, wasn’t just a collision – it was the collision.
What followed in the months to come was a series of nudges, more collisions with purpose I couldn’t ignore and an eerie and heightened level of self-awareness – an unavoidable avalanche of self-discovery.
Two months later, hiding out from the rain over a pot of peppermint tea in the Hotel Maria Cristina in San Sebastián, Spain – with the answer to his question front and center in my mind – I finally saw the first piece of it.
The Untethered Traveler.
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FINDING JOY FLATFOOTED & FLUSTERED
I was in a weird spot when I traveled to Spain a few months after being laid off. I was struggling with the guilt of being away and spending money, confronting the loss of my “corporate” identity and releasing stress and expectation that no longer served me. I should have felt lighter and free. But I felt weighted down, even more tired and stuck.
Toledo, however, was too special a place to let career transition anxiety overshadow its exploration and discovery. I permitted myself to get lost among its maze of corridors before arriving early to the day’s much anticipated main event, lunch at Taberna Botero.
The first to arrive that day, I was shown to a table upstairs in a bold and brightly colored dining room. An abundance of textures and art set a fun, celebratory mood. My spirits started to lift. Locals slowly started to fill the space and the energy in the room built in a contagious and palpable momentum.
Just as my first glass of red and the Black Cod Fritters arrived, a young family was seated to my left. They were three total: mother, father and a young boy maybe three years old. I’ll admit I bristled, selfishly questioning how their arrival would affect the carefree flow I’d finally found myself swimming in.
But those reservations were dismissed almost immediately. This young boy was adorable – long eyelashes, big tenderhearted eyes and an irresistible smile. If he wasn’t part of the salve I’d been looking for, then I don’t know what was.
He was a bit of a flirt! It wasn’t long before we were exchanging glances between the tables. I smiled, offered, “hola” and waved. He sheepishly did the same. I took a chance, pulling out some rusty Spanish. “Me llamo Amanda. ¿Cómo te llamas?” He shrank low and embarrassed in his chair. After some encouragement from his parents, he said with just as much shyness and charm, “Me llamo Fabio.”
I didn’t want to risk getting him in trouble so I tried to reposition us back into our own little worlds. But it wasn’t long before Fabio came to stand just next to me, looking up at me with those big, quizzical eyes. He fired off a string of questions and stories, one after the other. Sadly, none were a match for my four years of high school Spanish. All I could do was smile and say, bueno, bueno. He had me flatfooted and flustered in the absolute best way.
And there it was.
Sometimes all we need to make each other laugh and smile is a single word. I watched Fabio and his family leave, feeling lighter than I had in weeks.
Then he did something I’ll never forget. He turned around, looked me right in the eyes and waved “bueno!” just before disappearing down the stairs and out of view.
Bueno, I thought. Fabio had it right.
Everything will be just bueno.
COLLISION 00005
A SHADE OF ALL THREE
My Slovenian road trip from Lake Bled to Vipava wine country could best be described as the most harrowing, white-knuckled drive of my entire life. I will forever think twice before choosing the scenic route again. For hours, I navigated the most mind-blowingly narrow roads and bridges, held my breath passing through truly blind curves and squeezed past put-out speeding semis.
I rubbed blisters into my palms. I cursed and I cried.
By the time I finally made it to the flatter, tamer and wider roads of the valley I had almost run out of gas, missed an opportunity to eat and taken countless, hard-to-correct wrong turns. My gross miscalculation in driving time was about to cost me something worse – my first wine tasting in Slovenia at Lepa Vida.
Of all the tastings I had booked, Lepa Vida was the one I was most looking forward to. I felt drawn there.
The first time cell service permitted me to call the winery with an update, my 1pm appointment was approaching in ten minutes and I was easily still 20 minutes away. I was pumping gas and beyond grateful to be doing just that. The thought of keeping any guests waiting was out of the question so I told the woman on the other side of the line I’d eat the tasting fee – thinking to myself I’m not going to be the ugly American who keeps anyone waiting.
She was polite but having none of it. “Come,” she said, “we will wait. Take a breath and join us.”
I pulled into the parking lot about as frazzled and pissed off at life as one could be. Raging inside, I did my best to pull myself together before I walked into the tasting room.
No one was angry. No one was stressed. They were warm and welcoming.
I took the place that had been prepared for me. Their eye-catching lineup of wines and labels was on display just to the left of the huge floor-to-ceiling-window that framed an infinite stretch of vineyards.
Then the storytelling began. I felt my blood pressure drop as I let myself be swept away by story and surroundings.
I came to learn that the labels that caught my eye were in fact abstract drawings, each concealing a female silhouette. Each label a different color, a different female figure, a different story. I sat straight up in my chair. I didn’t know any of this.
Lepa is a familiar woman’s name in Slovenia and Vida of course means life. Collectively these labels and this winery represented the thousands of Slovenian women who left their families behind to work as wet nurses in Egypt when the Suez Canal was being built. In the decades that followed, these women who sent money back home when times were already tough, had become proud and strong symbols of independence and commitment.
My arms and neck broke out in goosebumps.
The story landed hard, especially since it sat among other inspiring encounters of strong Slovenian women – Irena Polanec, the portrait artist whose work I purchased in a Ljubljana gallery, Anna Roš, whose three-Michelin-star Hiša Franko I’d be dining at a week later, and Sanda, a reformed corporate marketer turned jewelry artisan I met at Center Rog.
All of this, the winery and the women’s stories that it honored, were artistic expressions of purpose and calling. I hadn’t just been drawn to Lepa Vida to taste wine. I had been drawn there to hear these women’s stories – to put color to the storytelling and taste that moved me.
As hard as it had been to get there to hear any of it, I was simply meant to. Some collisions are invitations and nudges, others drop serendipitously in front of us and still others we have to earn and fight like hell to even encounter.
This collision at first seemed to be the latter, but when I really thought long and hard about it, I realized it was a shade of all three.
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SHE DID THE SAME
On a sunny Saturday afternoon in November, the historic, narrow streets of Kyoto’s Higashiyama district were flooded with tourists. But the abundance of craft, culture and spiritual significance there made battling the crowds worth every minute.
Nestled in amongst the congestion, a plain storefront caught my attention. It looked like it was closed from the street. I took a chance and pushed the door open.
I immediately sensed the specialness of where I was. Nothing about the curated assortment, merchandising or shopkeeper screamed mass-produced or tourist trap. The lights were low. The store was still, tidy and full of one-of-a-kind artisan pieces – matcha bowls, tea sets and sake carafes.
I took my time browsing the store. Each time I circled back around to the corner of the boutique where the shopkeeper sat, I slowed and watched with interest as she folded tiny paper cranes.
She did not speak English but did her best to point and gesture around details and pieces of import. There is something so humbling and intensely human when life calls upon us to communicate without words. Facial expressions and body language become amplified currency with the eyes becoming our most important window to tone and meaning.
After I found the gifts I was looking for, I approached the table she’d been doing origami from. She carefully wrapped each item and I settled my bill. I smiled, bowed my head respectfully and whispered a delicate “arigatou” (thank you).
She did the same.
But before I could turn to leave she tucked two of the tiny paper cranes she’d been folding into my shopping bag. I felt a sudden surge of gratitude, awe and veneration overwhelm me. Surprised and a bit embarrassed by my own reaction, I quickly wiped away the tears that spilled out onto my eyeglasses.
I left the store on unsteady legs, both numbed and moved by the gesture of this elegant stranger.
From an overcrowded neighborhood in this sacred city, I had wandered into a respite of tranquility and grace. By walking through the door of a storefront that looked like it was closed from the street, I had set a simple and intimate exchange in motion. In the moment, it moved me to tears and for the rest of my life it would be a beautiful reminder of how uncomplicated the connections travel inspires can truly be.
Before I complicate and overthink it, I stop myself from wondering in busy skepticism if the shopkeeper gives out paper cranes to every customer.
That wasn’t what really mattered.
What mattered was how touching a collision could be between two strangers who couldn’t technically say anything more to each other than hello and thank you. And yet had managed in just a few seconds to have said so very, very much more.
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THE PERFECT FIT
Not all encounters of consequence will go on to reveal their meaning in the moment. Some will take root and linger inside for days, months, even years after first touch. They’ll resurface only when life bears down on us just so. Pressing for action or stillness, contemplation or clarity, release or ignition.
When we do finally extract their fruitful, hidden messages, as purposefully deposited as they were purposefully held on to, it’s like unwrapping an unexpected gift. These collisions are but another reminder that Travel is a journey, not a series of disconnected episodes. That if our hearts are open to it, something from a past season of our lives, can inspire us quite intentionally in the next.
In the Summer of 2024, I took a trip to the Nordics as the signs started to stack up that my career at Wilson Sporting Goods was coming to an end. My first stop was Helsinki. It was the Summer Solstice. The city was humming and buzzing through the change of another season – some places quiet others lively in celebration.
Restless for some retail therapy, I took a day trip to Porvoo, Finland a quaint little riverside town 30 miles east of Helsinki. The drive there was quite spectacular. The sun was shining, the shops were open and I felt just the tiniest surge of optimism flow through me.
I popped in and out of little boutiques and artisan shops, the most memorable of which was A La Louko, a hybrid Design Studio-Shop awash in pastels and linen. As I browsed, I engaged in light, casual conversation with the shopkeeper. I tried on a few things that caught my eye including a bone colored dress with a matching jacket. It was a one-of-a-kind classic-set that the shopkeeper had only recently designed. It felt like the Summer Solstice.
The moment I stepped into it I knew I had to have it. But I’m not sure who was more delighted when I walked out of the dressing room. It was such a perfect fit. For me, a special find, and for the shopkeeper/designer, her work finding the body who seemed always meant to fill it.
Eight months would pass before I ever thought about A La Louko again. It wasn’t until I wrote about Finland for Tessera 15 that I saw this moment for what it was – a collision. A slow and mysterious transmission of purpose.
At the time, the dress was nothing more than a happy find. With time I came to see it for the spark of possibility it was – a calling to my own creativity that had been set in motion by a simple, passing exchange between strangers. The Finnish shopkeeper’s conviction to live into her own entrepreneurial spirit and creativity had inspired an awareness and awakening in me.
She had helped me see in this journey of life, it was time to start dressing for the job I truly wanted, not the job I already had.
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MORE THAN A RECOMMENDATION
I was excited to dine at Koji in Wellington as their Pan-Asian menu promised to put all kinds of bold, colorful taste in front of me. And while Koji more than made good on that promise – its Miso Dengaku Eggplant still taunts me from across the Pacific – it was a chance and random encounter there, that made my meal one I will not soon forget.
In between inspired courses and wine pairings, I chatted with Koji’s restaurant manager, a young enthusiastic foodie who would come to deposit two perspectives and one unknowing nudge in front of me.
First, unsolicited validation of my theory that part of the tax of visiting a place as beautiful as New Zealand is wading through all the staunch and charged opinion. And second, sensing I too was a fellow, curious foodie, potent justification for why two restaurants must be added to my last day’s agenda in Wellington and my one night out’s game plan in Christchurch.
In the middle of all the “do this and see that” New Zealand discourse, I can’t say why this specific stranger’s recommendations broke through. But they did. I reset my Sunday plans. I took dinner my final night in Wellington at Graze Wine Bar’s chef counter and I slotted drinks and a couple small plates in at Londo’s counter before my existing dinner reservation at Gatherings.
His recos were simply exceptional. But there was something else elevating my experience at these cozy little gems. I was mesmerized and overcome by the magic of being in such close proximity to everyday people living and loving their purpose.
My collision with the young manager, wasn’t just an exchange of taste between two kindred spirits. It was evidence that if we put our faith in the transformative power of travel to move us – to really move us to where we’re meant to be – life will find a way to get us there. And, Taste as it always has will lead the way.
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A COLLISION WITH A COLLISION
I naturally feature collisions when I write about a destination and my brushes there with taste and purpose. The more consistently I write about my travels, the more I anticipate and recognize these fateful nudges, coincidences and encounters. Because I consider each such a meaningful steppingstone in my journey, I’m starting a weekly series to highlight the unplanned moments that make our travel matter that much more.
I think about collisions as among other things, a conversation that shifts something, a stranger who becomes a mirror, a place that hands you a piece of yourself you didn't even know was missing. Each impact reveals a truth, leaves its mark, deposits residue meant to shape not only how we move but who we become.
From the moment I arrived in Wairarapa wine valley’s Martinborough, New Zealand, I loved it. It was quaint and charming with all the treats and trappings of a sleepy but cozy small town.
But taxis? Not so much. If life has taught me one thing, it’s strike up a good rapport with the local taxi dispatch. For reasons that still aren’t abundantly clear, I failed on all counts to do that in Martinborough. And without saying it, the service’s one and only dispatcher made it known I was effectively never getting a taxi in her town.
The immediate and most damning impact of that discovery meant I was walking three weeks’ worth of luggage from the bus stop to the Parehua Resort about one mile away from the city center. I arrived and managed more than well enough on foot for the next few days.
But my early morning train back to Wellington, before the sun would even be up, was giving me fits. I tried Uber. I called every cab in the region. Nothing. At a loss for what to do, I reached out to the Parehua Resort, and a very friendly front desk clerk took pity on me. Even though her shift wasn’t due to start for another four hours that day, she agreed to get up early and drive me to the train.
We chatted the whole way to Featherston Station about my favorite topic on earth – travel. She was young and just starting out. She had never left New Zealand and asked one enthusiastic question after the other. Where had I been? What were my favorites? But the question she asked that stuck out the most was, “What’s the one piece of advice you’d give a first-time traveler?”
Since I’d only just finished Tessera 53 the night before, a reflection on the challenges of traveling New Zealand and staying true to our own calling and compass, I felt like I had been primed by the universe for the answer. “Listen to where and what calls you. Your vacation is your time. There’s always a list or an authority ready to tell you what you should do. You do you.”
As the words came out of my mouth, they hung curiously in the air. I had just spent, after all, the last several weeks wrestling to find them for myself. Now, here I was sharing them with newfound confidence and conviction in an effort to pay this stranger’s kindness forward.
A collision within a collision.
It’s amazing how the people we meet when we travel play a supporting role in our lives simply by listening, seeing and encouraging us.
Kaylan may have thought all she was doing that morning was driving me the eleven miles between towns and, best of all, saving me from walking country roads in the dark, but she was keeping me on course.
And I hope, in some small way, I had set her off on hers.